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Oxford United midfielder Will Vaulks says the international break has come at a "good time" for the squad given their lengthy injury list.

Midfielder Louie Sibley was recently ruled out for at least four weeks with an ankle injury, while centre-back Ben Nelson, winger Siriki Dembele and midfielder Cameron Brannagan are among seven others who remain sidelined.

"We don't want to make excuses but we have got a lot of top players in the team out at the moment," Vaulks told ����ý Radio Oxford's The Dub podcast.

"When they come back, that will benefit the group. I think the break comes at a good time and we'll look at the next load of fixtures and try and take as many points as we can, which is what we always try and do."

Des Buckingham's side are 16th in the Championship following a narrow 1-0 defeat to Watford at Vicarage Road on Friday night.

Despite the loss, Vaulks said the U's "have to take the positives from games" and also "learn from the things that haven’t been so good".

"Sunderland, we got outclassed and outperformed and we didn’t turn up the way we would expect to," he added.

"Other than that, we can only look at games and say we should've had more points. But I don't want to say that too often because we need to switch that around.

"The start of the season, we started really well but I don't think we've come away from those performances. I think teams maybe they just didn't respect as much at the start - and also teams take a while to get going."

Listen to the full episode on ����ý Sounds.