Oxford United went out of the Bristol Street Motors Trophy last night with a 2-0 defeat at AFC Wimbledon leaving them with just the league to concentrate on this season.
“We should have scored one or two goals in the first 20 minutes but didn’t take our chances” Des Buckingham told iFollow after the game. “Then they hit us on the transition and scored a good goal from the one chance they did have to put them one up at half time.
“We had a very different team out tonight with players who haven’t played very much or who haven’t played together. We have had to rely on a lot of players to play 90 minutes in every game for a long time now and we needed to make sure we got other players out there and getting minutes as we move into the second part of the season.
“We are out of the cup and the trophy now but we have spoken all along about the league being our priority. We are in a strong place in that and it’s now about making sure we have everyone we have ready and prepared to play at Carlisle and against Northampton and ready to kick start this part of the season.
“We have a lot of positives coming with players returning after injury and new additions coming in so the longer January goes on the stronger we should be.
“We thank the fans tonight. It’s not an easy place to get to, it was freezing but they came to support us and it’s unfortunate that we didn't give them a goal to celebrate but we will do our best for them at Carlisle in the next game and hopefully there are a lot more goals and there is plenty to celebrate in the games to come, starting Saturday and rolling through until the end of April.”
See the full interview and extended highlights, all in iFollow