We make the short trip to Northampton this afternoon.

We’ll all be travelling in our own cars and making sure we follow the correct protocols and procedures in these most extraordinary times.

It’s strange to be playing today’s opponents for a second time this season, when there are still three teams we have not played yet.

I won’t name them, see if you can work it out!

We had a really good result against them in the home game, although we scored two goals late on and Northampton will probably argue that the scoreline flattered us.

It was a lot closer than we would have liked and we expect another very hard game today.

That result came at the start of this run we’re on at the moment, where we’ve only lost once in eleven matches.

The latest victory came against Cambridge on Tuesday night in the Papa John’s Trophy and I thought we were extremely professional throughout that game.

Cambridge, like Walsall and Forest Green earlier in the competition, played well and made life hard for us and I had to just remind the players of a few things at half time!

I felt like we were on top in the second half, but just as I was wondering if we were going to penalties we won a free-kick.

Rob Hall accepted the responsibility with a great goal, good enough to win any cup tie.

Go and look at the highlights again and see the smiles as the players congratulate him: Hally is such a pleasure to have around and works really hard all the time.

He’s always capable of that little bit of magic and we were so pleased to see him score that goal.

Mind you, if we draw Sunderland or Hull away in the next round we’ll be cursing him!

Joking aside, we’re in the last eight now, two games from a Wembley final so we won’t get an easy draw, will we?

It’s just nice to still be in the competition and it was a good night in other ways, with Cameron Brannagan and Sam Winnall both starting after long lay-offs.

They’ll benefit from the game time and if we can get them firing it will give us serious competition for places in two key areas.

On Tuesday we asked players to show us they deserved a chance more regularly in the league.

They did that, and now I have serious decisions to make as we go in to a crucial part of the season, starting today.

Read also: Karl Robinson reflects on Oxford United 'rollercoaster' ahead of milestone game

I’m always aware of the great names from the past who I’ve followed into the hot seat at Oxford United.

I have a picture of Jim Smith and Maurice Evans right outside my office and when I walked past those two the other day I heard a familiar voice down the corridor.

Brian Horton, who was manager at a difficult time for the club, was on the other end of a Zoom call for a podcast the club were doing.

I get on really well with him: our paths crossed when I was a young coach and he was second in command to Phil Brown at Hull.

He mentioned that he has a book out called ‘2,000 games as a manager’.

I thought I’d be doing well if I passed the 1,000 game mark!

It just reminded me that managers come and go, but the club keeps moving forward.

I’m proud to follow in the footsteps of a true football man like Brian and be part of the current chapter of the club’s history.