BILLY Bodin is relishing the prospect of being Oxford United’s key creator tonight, while Ruben Rodrigues serves a one-game ban.

Summer signing Rodrigues was shown two yellow cards in the loss at Cheltenham Town on Saturday, meaning Bodin is likely to be United’s main creative force for the visit of Sky Bet League One leaders Bolton Wanderers.

Bodin has varied between playing on the left and as a No 10 for the U’s this season, while he also had a stint up front when Mark Harris served a three-game suspension earlier in the campaign.

Rodrigues meanwhile has played almost exclusively in the central attacking position, but Bodin is looking forward to potentially moving infield this evening.

He said: “It’s a position that I do really enjoy playing, so hopefully I can go in there, if selected, and chip in with creating more chances.

“We’re a team, and we want to create or score as many as we can, or help our teammates as much as we can.

“He’s [Rodrigues] obviously a lot different to me, where I try and stay a bit closer to the forward if I do play as a 10, and Rubes tries getting on the ball a bit deeper, where his range of passing is excellent.

“Everyone brings something slightly different to the team, and hopefully we can get the ball in better areas than we did on Saturday, and create a lot more.”

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Kyle Edwards made his return from a hamstring injury at Cheltenham, while Marcus Browne is also edging closer to first team duties following his own hamstring problem.

Bodin said: “We’ve missed their pace out wide, and the directness. It’s different when I play out there, as I always got told to come inside and allow Greg [Leigh] to bomb on.

“On Saturday, we missed Greg bombing on and there were a few little tweaks that probably didn’t work out as well as we wanted.

“The skipper was missing, and Greg as well. It was disappointing, but we still had a game plan and chances to win, or at least draw the game.”

On the defeat against the Robins, Bodin added: “Everyone was disappointed and it was nothing like what we’ve been capable of this season.

“Even though we didn’t perform as well as we wanted, I still feel like we had the chances to definitely get a point out of the game, and maybe win the game.

“We knew exactly how Cheltenham were going to play and perform, and they didn’t let us down.

“They literally did exactly what we knew they were going to do, and the fact we knew they were going to do that, and we didn’t stop it, is the most disappointing thing.”