When I started as manager of Oxford United, someone said “one thing you’ll find is it’s never dull round here”.

How right they were!

The last 18 months have been incredible and every time I think I’ve seen everything in football then something else comes along that nobody could have anticipated.

I felt ok on Monday, reported to the training ground and was ready to continue our preparations for Tuesday night’s home game.

We came in on Sunday and had worked hard, so we were all in a positive place.

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Then suddenly everything changed in a moment and being positive no longer seemed such a good idea.

Once I’d failed a lateral flow test, I knew I had to do a PCR test so I didn’t get any further than the door to reception.

I sat in my car to gather my thoughts, but I was gathering a little crowd around me too because we needed to make two sets of plans: one if I tested negative, one if I was unable to make the game.

I’m blessed with some amazing people around me.

Amy Cranston, our head of medical, took charge and made sure we followed all the correct protocols.

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Craig Short and John Mousinho accepted responsibility for the team, based on plans we’d made the day before.

But everyone in the club knows their roles and has learned that thinking on your feet comes with the territory while Covid is still around.

I did laugh as I drove away though, because I passed Derek Fazackerley who had just arrived.

He must have wondered what on earth was going on: even Faz hasn’t seen everything in football yet!

Because we have good people and good infrastructure, we can cope with most things and I want to thank everyone for the way they rallied round.

We won on Tuesday night and then we’ve prepared properly for today’s game at Burton.

Because we’ve invested in technology as well as in people I’ve been able to watch training, look at drone footage of the sessions, monitor heart rates, distances and workloads and be involved as much as possible in the build-up.

I’ll be watching the game online today and hopefully we can carry on where we left off on Tuesday and get another win.

I would love to be there, but I know that everyone in that dressing room today knows their job and will be ready.

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I’ve known Burton manager Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink for a while and he’s doing an amazing job at the Brewers.

The day he took over was the afternoon we won 5-1 at the Pirelli Stadium and they were adrift at the bottom of the league.

Since then, they have been one of the form teams in the whole EFL, not just League One, and are near the play-off places on merit.

We won there in the cup earlier in the season, but that has little bearing on today’s game.

I expect it to be one of our toughest matches of the season so far and whatever happens I’m sure Jimmy and I will speak on the phone tonight. All I hope is it’s me offering the commiserations!