With the season almost over managers will already be looking to 2019/20. Oxford United are set to lose some key players over the summer but they should look to the league below for replacements.
With Jordan Graham, Marcus Browne, Luke Garbutt, Samir Carruthers and Jerome Sinclair all set to return to their parent clubs Karl Robinson will be on the hunt for new players.
Considering his possession based style there will be certain criteria he will be looking at but it is his assistant manager that may hold the key.
Shaun Derry could raid his old club Cambridge in order to help Oxford strengthen in the right areas.
Jevani Brown and George Maris are both possible targets with the later out of contract this summer.
It is thought that Derry would like to bring Brown to the club after he originally signed the former Peterborough trainee from St Neots during the summer of 2017. Entering the final year of his current deal, Jevani Brown has been the stand-out player for Colin Calderwood’s side.
He is their top scorer while also leading the assists, key-passes and chances created categories as well. Whether Oxford could tempt Cambridge into selling their top asset is debatable but Colin Calderwood will want to build his own squad and selling Jevani Brown would give him that opportunity.
As for George Maris, he will have plenty of offers but he shares an agent with James Henry who is also at the Yellow and his playing style would be a fit in a Robinson system.
The D3D4 take
Both players would likely thrive at Oxford and the Shaun Derry link makes it feasible. The one question mark would be whether Karl Robinson’s side has the financial clout to make a competitive offer and, indeed, whether Cambridge would be willing to listen to bids.
Everyone has their price but we’d take a bit of convincing that Oxford could be the ones to match it.