DES Buckingham reckons Oxford United will need 75 points if they are to make the Sky Bet League One play-offs this season.

The U’s are currently fifth in the table, on 57 points, meaning another 18 points will be required from their final 12 games if they are to hit the 75-point mark.

United head coach Buckingham believes his side has enough quality either from the beginning of matches, or off the bench, to reach 75 points and finish in the top six at the end of the season.

He said: “We think that if we look at how the league is trending, that 75 points will be enough to make the play-offs, and then 90 to get automatics.

“That’s a target, but I think there’ll be a target for everyone trying to make those positions.

“When I look back across the last three games, at Blackpool, we’ve had a really good chance to win the game with a header that’s come off the post from Billy Bodin.

“I didn’t think we played particularly well at Wycombe, but we’ve done enough to come away with the result, and there was a penalty for me, that wasn’t given, that could’ve given us three points.

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“The other night, we were two or three minutes from leaving with another two points instead of one.

“It’s those moments that are very important, but we know that will change. We’ve seen the impact that whether it’s from the start, like on Tuesday night, we can come flying out of the blocks and get goals early, rather than having to react like we had done in previous games.

“Or whether it’s the changes that we make, with Owen Dale and Will Goodwin coming on and combining to get the goal that put us in front, we’ve got the ability to do both now.

“It’s about bringing that together for the final run-in. I think we’ve certainly got enough to go and get that points target.”

On whether he has a specific points target in mind for each game between now and the end of the campaign, Buckingham said: “I’m more interested in how we want to play. If we’re clear on what we’re doing and how we do it, and hold ourselves to those standards, that should be enough to get us a result.

“Football is not as easy as that sometimes, and we saw that on Tuesday night.

“They’ve had two shots on target, and both have gone in, and we’ve had 18 shots on theirs, and only two have gone in.

“We’re having to work extremely hard at the minute to convert our chances.”