DES Buckingham is keeping his cards close to his chest when it comes to his team selection for Oxford United’s play-off final against Bolton Wanderers.

United have named the same starting XI for the last three games, those being the final day of the regular Sky Bet League One campaign, away at Exeter City, and for both legs of the play-off semi-finals against Peterborough United.

There will be calls for U’s head coach Buckingham to make on not just who starts at Wembley, but who makes the bench, and who is left out of the matchday squad.

Will Goodwin and Gatlin O’Donkor have both been involved in training, and with United lacking a natural centre forward on the bench in recent weeks, there may be a huge call for Buckingham to make on that front.

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He said: “We’ve said all along that we’ll pick what we think is the right team for each game. We always judge on two things, one will be performance from previous games, and the other will be whether we think we can get an advantage somewhere.

“We’ve shown in the last few games that we haven’t necessarily made changes because tactically we thought the matchups would be better suited.

“Whatever we go with on Saturday we feel will be the right thing for this game, but also making sure we’ve got other plans off the bench should we need them.

“We’ve done enough work over the last couple of weeks, whether it’s the starting XI or the others that have taken to the pitch.

“We do the same work with that starting XI and the rest of the squad, so that everyone gets that opportunity to go through the same sessions.

“Regardless of who’s in or who’s not, who comes in or who goes off, they’re all aware of what they need to do.”

Oxford Mail:

The gap between the second leg of the Posh semi-final and tomorrow’s final will stand at 10 days, more than usual in the vigour of a League One campaign.

Buckingham said: “It’ll be a 10-day gap, and that’s a lifetime with the season that we’ve had. We’ve had a flat week this week, which means we’ve trained Monday to Friday, and we’ve covered everything I think to put ourselves in the best position come Saturday.

“The quality of training has been as high as it has been since I’ve been here. The mood is one of focus, but relaxed, and we’ve tried to keep it that way.

“We haven’t really changed too much, if anything, this week. They know the importance of the game, so we don’t need to go on about it.

“What we do need to do is make sure we’re really clear on what we want to do, and that’s what we’ve focused our time and energy on in the training sessions.”