James Constable will happily do what it takes to play for Oxford United tomorrow, saying it is less painful than watching from the sidelines.

The striker, who turns 29 today, made a surprise return to the squad last weekend, just three weeks after chipping a bone in his foot.

For the first time in his career he had an injection to numb the pain and it was worthwhile, allowing ‘Beano’ to play the final 20 minutes in the U’s 3-1 win at Hartlepool.

Although he has trained all week, the U’s frontman will still need strapping and painkillers to make the squad for Southend United’s visit to the Kassam Stadium.

U’s boss Chris Wilder praised his No 9’s attitude of putting the team first, but Constable shrugged it off and felt it would be worse to be still in the treatment room. He said: “It was surprising to be back that quickly.

“As a player I’m just desperate to be out there. It’s my job to be playing and trying to score goals.

“You don’t want to be sat indoors and having to do four or five sessions a day in the pool or the gym.

“It’s just nice to be out playing football and it will take a lot of pain to stop me being out there.”

The victory at Hartlepool lifted the U’s back up to second in the Sky Bet League Two table.

Almost a quarter of the season will have passed by tomorrow evening and Constable believes the bright start has given them a solid base to build a successful season. He said: “We’re at the point now where we’re ten games in and it’s a platform. “We’ve had the start and finding out what some of the teams are going to be like and now it’s important we continue that form. “I’m sure throughout the season there will be a few more lows but hopefully a lot more highs. “It’s important we stick together, but we have a decent squad of players who understand the situation we’re in. “We need to keep the mo-mentum. We’ve had a decent week training, and we’ll go into it full of confidence.”