THEY say that to be successful in English football you have to be prepared for every sort of condition and I think that this week has proved that.

The heavy snow that fell on Sunday meant that we had to adjust our plans and head indoors to the dome at the Oxford Academy.

It is fantastic to have that facility so close to the training ground and we were able to train with the same intensity as usual, so the bad weather had minimal effect on what we did this week.

The players have been in great spirits and rightly so after a good run of results and a late win against Doncaster Rovers last weekend.

As we thought, Doncaster were a strong physical side who tried to limit the space available to us and it became a very tight game.

I always thought we were in command and that proved the case when Josh Ruffels scored a long-range goal to give us an important three points.

I was pleased with the clean sheet and the patience we showed to win the game.

We proved that if we can cut out the basic mistakes we have a good chance of winning games thanks to our strength in attack.

I think we have a very knowledgeable crowd at Oxford who can see that the players work hard each time.

Sometimes it’s easy to overlook when a player makes a great run to create space for somebody else, or when a winger tracks back to follow an opponent and help the defence.

Those are not so eye-catching but are vital components of any successful side.

Watch carefully and you will see players doing it all of the time in this particular squad.

We will need to do that again today at Rochdale.

Take no notice of the league table – their home form is good and they will be pushing very hard because they know that winning their home matches will be key to their survival.

They will be well motivated and we have to be aware of this and match their fire and passion and then look to impose our own style of football on the game.

We have a lot of football coming up over the next three weeks and that means the table can change very quickly.

We have to make sure we do things right today, come back with another three points, and continue our current positive form into the Christmas weekend.

AWAY from the pitch, we went to the Oxford Children’s Hospital on Thursday afternoon.

When there, we met the patients and staff and gave some presents that fans had donated or the players had bought.

As you know, I have a young son who is growing up in Oxford and it was fantastic to see such a brilliant place up close.

I have total respect for all of the staff at the Children’s Hospital.

They do an amazing job and I hope that all the brave children and their parents we met get to go home for Christmas.