Chris Wilder believes his Oxford United squad now has greater energy and athleticism – and still have everything to play for, writes JON MURRAY.

It was quite a young team anyway – especially when compared to Jim Smith’s side in United’s first season in the Conference in 2006-7.

Wilder’s capture of three 19-year-olds – Ricky Sappleton, Adam Chapman and Shane Killock – on loan this month has lowered the average age of the team further.

But the new U’s boss says he is not concerned that it appears, on the face of it, to be a young and relatively inexperienced squad.

“I like young players,” he said. “I like athletic players with mobility and pace. There has got to be a touch of experience in there and it goes hand in hand.

“At the moment, the boys we brought in will I think add something to the squad, and I think we needed that.”

With a lot of players’ contracts up in the summer, Wilder will take a careful look then at the balance of his squad.

But at the moment he is still concentrating on seeing if he can get Oxford into the play-offs this season.

“Obviously, when the big decisions get made at the end of the season, we need to make sure the balance of that is correct,” he said.

“There’s still 20 games to go, there’s still players here that might think they are on the way out who might have a future, and there might be players here that think they have a future who might be on the way out.

“Players are always getting judged, and players must always be in a postion here where they don’t sit back and think ‘I’m set in stone’. I will always try to raise the bar at the football club.”

He added: “I still think there’s something in the season for us, I really do believe that.

“I won’t turn the opportunity down of being successful now. I’ve spoken to people in the game and they’ve said the position you’re in is a nice one because you can take a step back and look at what you’ve got.

“Sorry, I’m not that sort of person.

“That’s why I badly wanted to win that game at Salisbury and want my players to win every game that they take part in, whether they’re part of my short or long-term plans.”

Midfielder Eddie Hutchinson is one who former boss Darren Patterson wanted to offload, because he is one of the club’s biggest wage-earners, to free up money for signings.

But the former Brentford man did not want to go when previous offers were put to him.

Asked about Hutchinson’s situation on the transfer list, Wilder said: “Hutch is the same as any of the players. I will consider every offer that’s made to any of them because there might be a player I quite like that we have to free up, though I don’t like to lose my better ones.

“Hutchinson is in a situation that nobody’s inquired about him, so he’ll stay here.

“I’ll wait to see if anybody makes an inquiry. They haven’t as yet and we’ll just make sure that Hutch is part of our plans in the meantime. With the size of our squad, he’s an important part.”