Oxford United boss on Coventry City and Carabao Cup tie
DES Buckingham says Coventry City can provide a blueprint for Oxford United to look at and learn from as they seek to establish themselves in Sky Bet Championship.
The U’s are competing in the second tier of English football for the first time since the 1998/99 campaign, and travel to the Sky Blues in the second round of the Carabao Cup tonight.
The sides met at the Coventry Building Society Arena just 11 days ago in Championship action, with Haji Wright netting six minutes into stoppage time to secure a 3-2 win for the hosts.
The Sky Blues were relegated to League Two in 2017, but under Mark Robins have risen back up the football pyramid, and are once again fancied to finish in the Championship top six come the end of the season.
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United head coach Buckingham said: “Coventry are a very good blueprint. What they’ve done over the last six or seven years, to be able to build themselves into not just a Championship side, but a very good Championship side, but also assemble the squad they have.
“It’s a nice blueprint for us to look at, not to copy, but it allows them to have not just a good starting XI, but a very good squad where even if they do a full rotation of that squad, they still make themselves a very competitive Championship side.”
The U’s are likely to use this evening’s meeting as an opportunity to rotate players, just as they did for the first round victory against Peterborough United, when Buckingham made eight changes from the side which beat Norwich City in the Championship opener.
Buckingham said: “We used the last game as a bit of a mix, where we kept a couple in from the Saturday, and then rotated quite heavily.
“It gave the players a chance to show they understood what we do and how we do it.
“It gives us another chance, whether it’s the same players from the last game or the other ones that have become available, like an Owen Dale or Dane Scarlett, it gives us a chance to have a bit more of a look at those, and that’s what we’ll use the game for.
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