Oxford United hit with injury blow ahead of relegation tussle with West Brom

The Belgian had not featured since suffering a shoulder injury during a 2-1 win at Leicester City on January 24. 

Manager Matt Bloomfield has now revealed that De Keersmaecker will undergo surgery and will not feature again this season. 

De Keersmaecker had scored twice and set-up five more in 26 appearances in the Championship after arriving from Dutch outfit Heracles Almelo last summer. 

The U's sit second from bottom in the Championship, six points adrift of safety and West Brom in 21st-place.

Bloomfield's charges are winless in six league games and have tasted victory just once in 11 (drawing four, losing six). 

Only relegated Sheffield Wednesday (two) have scored fewer goals than both Oxford and Albion (five each) since the turn of the year. 

Oxford are desperately short of a talisman with leading scorer Will Lankshear failing to score in each of his last eight league appearances.

After their latest 2-1 defeat at Stoke, Bloomfield said: "I didn't think we hit the same levels as we did on Saturday at Middlesbrough. [We conceded] two soft goals from our point of view. 

"I'd have liked us to be more solid out of possession, but we found our way back into the game, hit the bar and we could be talking about a different result right now. 

"We're playing against top opposition every week and our boys have been great recently - our performance levels have been very good. 

"But we have to be at our best every week, we hit those levels at times tonight, but at times I felt our shape was a little bit open for what we wanted, especially away from home. 

"There's certainly things we can go after again."