Oxford United boss expecting a high quality clash between his in-form side and Peterborough United

Posh eased to a 3-0 win at the Weston Homes Stadium in October in one of Buckingham’s first games in charge.

But Oxford have changed their style of play in recent weeks and they’ve been rewarded with three wins in four unbeaten games to revitalise their push for the League One play-offs. Posh boss Darren Ferguson recognised the change and Oxford’s impressive recent form in his own pre-match press conference yesterday.

Fergie on Oxford

Buckingham was at London Road to watch Posh beat Port Vale 3-0 on Wednesday. He told the Oxford Mail: “Peterborough create a lot of opportunities and have one of the highest expected goals ratios in the league. I saw that against Port Vale. They create numerous chances, but then so do we.

“We’ve changed what we do, and we’ve become a far more aggressive team in our press, and the stats back that up. We’re at the top in terms of aggressiveness in our press, we turn over the ball higher up, and we get more opportunities on goal.

“I’m expecting a very good game with two good teams that want to play a similar way. It’ll be a very good game.

“We have to be really smart in how we set up. We need to be clear on what that looks like, and we need to execute it on the day.

“If we do that, we’ll try and nullify as many of those threats that we can, whilst also not taking attention away from our own threat.

“We’ll set ourselves up as well as we can to try and take on a good Peterborough side. I went to watch them on Wednesday night and they’re a good team.

“We’ve won four out of the last six, and we’re on a bit of a run ourselves. We focus on that, and we’re starting to see real progression in performances.

“As long as we continue to do that, we’ll put ourselves in the best spot possible to continue doing what we want to do.”

It’s the start of a run of three big home games in a row for Oxford. After Posh they host in-form Lincoln City, who are making their own late charge for the play-offs, on Tuesday (April 16) and then they tackle Stevenage, another play-off contender, the following Saturday (April 20).

Oxford, who have won their last two games 4-0, are currently sitting in the final play-off place, two points ahead of Lincoln and three points clear of Stevenage, with four games to go.