DES Buckingham was delighted by what he deemed Oxford United’s best performance under him as they hammered Peterborough United 5-0 at Grenoble Road.

Mark Harris, Josh Murphy and Ruben Rodrigues handed the U’s a three-goal lead at the break, before Rodrigues grabbed his brace just before the hour mark, while Billy Bodin netted the fifth late on.

The handsome victory ensured United made it three consecutive wins, with 13 goals scored and none conceded, while also providing a huge boost to their play-off aspirations.

The U’s, sixth in Sky Bet League One, welcome Lincoln City on Tuesday night, and know a win would send them six points clear of seventh-placed Blackpool with just two games to go.

Read our match report here

United head coach Buckingham said: “That’s certainly the best football we’ve played since I’ve been here. We’ve spoken a lot about arriving at this stage in a good space and making sure that during that period when we had all those injuries, we would put ourselves in a strong position.

“We’ve seen over the past couple of weeks a really clear understanding of how we want to play and what we want to do.

“I thought the players today were excellent across the pitch, especially considering we lost Elliott [Moore] and Cam [Brannagan] late yesterday, so full credit to them for that performance.”

The Posh went into the game with hopes of an automatic promotion push, and were supposed to present the U’s with a stern challenge, but in reality, they were virtually outplayed for the majority of the game.

Buckingham said: “They’re still a side that are in with a shout of automatic promotion. We drove up there on Wednesday to watch their game, and they’ve got so many threats across the pitch.

“We know they’re the leading goalscorers in the league, and they’ve got so many threats up front, but it was about building on what we’ve been doing over the last couple of weeks.

“The players carried out exactly what we wanted to do, almost to the letter.

“I’m very happy with what I’ve just seen, but now it’s making sure we get rest and recovery, to try and put on another performance like that on Tuesday.”