MICHAEL Appleton has challenged his Oxford United players to show they are genuine play-off contenders by reaching the 50-point mark before the end of February.

Saturday's 1-0 victory over Milton Keynes Dons was the side's fourth win in five Sky Bet League One games.

It took them to 43 points for the campaign, four adrift of Millwall in sixth place.

Appleton has made it clear his first objective this season was to hit 50 points to make sure they would be safe from relegation.

But the head coach admitted if the U's can collect seven points from games against Southend United, Charlton Athletic and Chesterfield this month they would be in a position to attack the final two months of the season.

He said: "I would be absolutely delighted if we did that.

"Then they would answer a lot of questions from my point of view as a group, they would genuinely be contenders.

"If we can reach that tally by the end of February we would put ourselves in a really strong position going into the last 12 or 13 games.

"Then it would be game on."

Southend are one of the sides United need to overtake if they are going to claim a play-off place.

The Essex side have lost just one of their last 16 meetings with the U's, although Appleton's side gained a measure of revenge for September's 2-1 league defeat at Roots Hall with a penalty shoot-out victory in the Checkatrade Trophy.

He said: "We’ve had two decent games against them and I think we’ve played very well in them.

"They have a way of playing which suits them and they have two very experienced centre forwards I know very well from my time at West Brom (Simon Cox and Marc-Antoine Fortune).

"They’re a very difficult to beat. They went down to ten men against a tough Millwall side on Saturday (losing 1-0).

"I saw their penalty appeal and I’ve never seen such a nailed-on penalty turned down in my life.

"Phil and his team will be smarting and they will want to put an end to that on Tuesday night."