DES Buckingham would have no problem playing both Will Goodwin and Mark Harris together, after the former made his Oxford United debut.
Goodwin signed for the U’s from Cheltenham Town last month, but a minor quad injury ruled him out of the first four games since joining.
However, he made his first United appearance when he came off the bench just after the hour mark in the 1-1 draw at Blackpool yesterday.
The striker replaced Tyler Goodrham, and went straight up front, while Harris, who had earlier brought the U’s level, moved to the right-hand side.
READ ALSO: Des Buckingham reacts to Oxford United’s draw at Blackpool
On Goodwin and Harris, United head coach Buckingham said: “The good thing is they can play together. We moved Sparky out wide, and I’d have no problem playing the two of them together, whether that’s as a two or one in behind the other.
“It gives us different options, depending on the state of the game we’re playing.”
Discussing Goodwin’s debut, Buckingham said: “We got Will on a bit sooner than we’d planned. We felt we weren’t going in behind them enough.
“They’re a team that tries to pin you in your own half, and they commit a lot of numbers to try and do that.
“There’s a lot of space behind, so we felt that we weren’t doing that enough in the first half, and we were getting pinned, so we needed somebody to be able to play off.
“Will certainly gives us that option, and it helped change the dynamic of the game in our favour.”
Josh Murphy also made his return from a calf problem, when he came on at half-time for Tyler Burey, while Billy Bodin returned from an Achilles issue when he replaced Harris with seven minutes to go.
Buckingham said: “We knew those players could do anything between 30 to 45 minutes. What I didn’t want to do was wait to get all of them on.
“There was an opportunity at half-time for Josh Murphy to maybe do a little bit more than Tyler, and it gave us the opportunity to get 45 minutes into Josh, which he was very hungry to do.”
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