GARY Rowett has played down the possible advantage to be gained from Hull City playing with 10 men for most of their game at the weekend.
Oxford United visit the MKM Stadium tomorrow night, with the Tigers coming off the back of a 1-1 draw at Bristol City for which they were a man down for the majority.
Joao Pedro gave the Tigers the lead with 13 minutes on the clock, but was then shown a straight red card 96 seconds later for a challenge on George Tanner.
The Tigers then demonstrated great resilience to dig in and grind out a draw at Ashton Gate, and U’s head coach Rowett downplayed any physical upper hand his side might be able to gain.
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He said: “I don’t think I would ever feel that could be any sort of an advantage. There are certain times when you know that maybe starting quickly in a game might cause the opposition to have some challenges from a physical perspective.
“I don’t think that’s necessarily going to be a huge problem. There’s plenty of recovery time after a Saturday game to Wednesday.
“It’s Wednesday to Saturday that tends to be a little bit more of a challenge. We won’t go into the game with that in mind.
“It of course might mean that they change at least one position, and I’m sure there are two or three other options, so we’ll have to try and predict what that’ll be, but it’s not really much of our concern to be honest.”
After the Tigers clash, United host Watford on Saturday, with the March international break then seeing a fortnight until the next game.
Rowett said: “What you want to do is go into the international break with an awful lot of work being done to get us into this position.
“We can look at the recent run and where we were when we came in, and where we are now, and I’m sure we would’ve taken that position and the points tally.
“It’s important we finish strong. It’s important we use the Norwich game and result, and a different type of performance and resilience, to prepare us for these next two games.
“Every opponent has strengths and every opponent has weaknesses, and we’re looking forward to the challenge of the two games.”
Rowett added: “I think every game we’ve been pretty competitive in. Every game has been small margins.
“I think the recent run of games unfortunately for us, the margins haven’t quite gone our way, and that’s how it works sometimes.
“What you’ve got to do is show a responsibility to put an end to that run, and I thought the Norwich performance to a certain degree did that.
“What we’ve got to do now is build off the back of that and make sure we continue that type of performance.”