Loan star Ashley Barnes says he hopes he can stay at Oxford United for a while to continue his goalscoring habit.

The young Plymouth Argyle striker scored the U's second goal in their 2-0 win at Kidderminster last Saturday after coming off the bench at the start of the second half.

It was the type of goal you only get from a natural goalscorer as he showed clever movement to lose his marker before smartly heading in a right-wing cross.

But there is no surprise in that, because Barnes has proved throughout his flegling career that he knows exactly where the goal is.

Despite at the time being only 17, he had scored 15 times up until February last season for Somerset club Paulton Rovers in the Southern League.

Then, he impressed Plymouth's then-manager Ian Holloway during a two-month trial at the Championship club which earned him a contract at Home Park.

Bath-born Barnes hit five goals in seven reserve-team games to finish as Plymouth's top Combination scorer last season - despite only having been with them for ten weeks.

After his debut goal for Oxford at the weekend, Barnes, who has just turned 18, admitted: "I was scoring nearly every game at Paulton Rovers, and I stepped up.

"The gaffer that was, Holloway, brought me up, I owe a lot to him.

"I've joined Oxford because I want to play football because in the reserves down there we only have a reserve game every three weeks or maybe even a month.

"My ambition is to score goals higher up the league, and maybe one day in the Premiership."

With Holloway leaving Plymouth to become Leicester's new boss and Paul Sturrock leaving Swindon to take over as Argyle's manager, Barnes knows he has a new gaffer to try to impress, and there's a chance he may be recalled next month for that reason.

He said: "I left Plymouth when it (the new manager) was all getting sorted. They said I might get recalled if they get a striker crisis, but I wouldn't mind staying here for a bit to help out the club and take them higher, which would be brilliant."

THE draw for the fourth round of the Setanta Shield, where Oxford United enter the competition, takes place after the Woking v Ebbsfleet match on Setanta on Thursday night.