BURY manager David Flitcroft has denied he faces a selection headache ahead of tomorrow’s League Two match at Oxford United.

Loan defenders Adam El-Abd and Rob Milsom are expected to return to the matchday squad after being unavailable for selection for last weekend’s FA Cup draw against Luton.

Both El-Abd and Milsom made their debuts in the previous league defeat against Newport at the expense of captain Jim McNulty and Pablo Mills, who both returned to help the Shakers peg back the Hatters with a late equaliser.

But Flitcroft said: “Managers talk about a selection headache and it’s not really. I think if it is a football decision it is never personal, it is professional.

“I explain that to the players, I always talk to them and tell them why I have left them out. I am trying to win a football match.

“Explaining to them is the biggest part of what man-management is about and I certainly endeavour to do that every time I leave a player on the sidelines.

“They have dealt with it so far really well. Watching that reaction after we scored (against Luton), those players want to win football matches for this club and that pleases me.”

Flitcroft undoubtedly faces a dilemma – whether or not to risk snuffing out the feelgood factor created by Danny Nardiello’s stoppage-time leveller against Luton.

That result stopped a run of four straight defeats in all competitions, which has seen Bury slip to eighth, outside the play-off places.

They will now bid to build on last Saturday’s change in fortune by claiming another positive result at Oxford, who are 19th in the table, with only one victory in their last five games.

And while a handful of players are sure to be left unhappy by Flitcroft’s team selection, he is confident they will all be pulling in the same direction come kick-off.

“It is a daily thing,” said the Bury boss, as he bids to foster unity in a squad that has been bolstered by seven loan signings since the end of October.

“I took the lads to Daytona last Wednesday as a group, just sort of a together day.

“(Loan striker) Hallam Hope ended up winning the go-karting, but you wanted to see the competitive edge I have put into my team come out and it was a fantastic afternoon.

“We will build this squad together. It is something I believe will happen, but things just don’t happen overnight.

“If they do, you get the boom and bust. If you build something too quick you end up getting there and then failing in the next phase of what you are doing.

“So we are trying to build it out with patience, with time, but with quality.”

Milsom is expected to be fit for selection after going down with a sickness bug that has swept through the camp and also affected Tom Soares before last weekend’s game.

Kelvin Etuhu, however, is being monitored after missing the Luton tie with a hamstring strain.