DES Buckingham says that Oxford United will have more room in the budget this summer following Josh Murphy’s decision to leave the club.

Murphy’s contract expires on Sunday, and earlier this week, the 29-year-old chose to join Portsmouth on a three-year deal, with 12-month option.

This newspaper understands that the U’s offered a contract which would’ve made Murphy the highest paid player in the club’s history.

Woes, wing wizardry and Wembley win: Reflections on Josh Murphy’s time with U’s

Losing the winger on a free transfer is a blow for United, whose promotion from Sky Bet League One was sealed thanks to Murphy’s brace against Bolton Wanderers in the play-off final.

What Murphy’s exit does mean though is that the wage budget has been freed up a little for the U’s to bring in further reinforcements, having already added goalkeepers Jamie Cumming and Jacob Knightbridge, right back Peter Kioso and midfielder Will Vaulks to their squad.

Asked if there is more in the budget after Murphy’s departure, Buckingham responded: “Yes, of course. Before Wembley, we set out two different plans, so if we stayed in League One, we knew what the strategy was going to be and the players we wanted to go after, and if we won, what that would look like.

“We’ve continued that in the last five or six weeks, and made some movement already. There are others on the radar as well.

“There isn’t a lot of movement in the market at all at the moment when you look around the leagues and clubs, whether that’s because of the Euros or not.

“I’m sure that will start ramping up now because teams are starting to go back or they’re back next week, and players will want to be in from the earliest moment possible.”

On the search for additional wide players, United’s head coach added: “I don’t care what level of football we play at, whether that’s League One or the Championship, I don’t want to be a coach that tries not to lose games or tries to defend too often.

“We’ve got a way that we want to play and that won’t change too much in the Championship, but we need to be smart in how we play, similar as to we did at Wembley against Bolton.

“We all need to make sure that recruitment-wise, we get in the building what we haven’t got or we utilise the skillset of the people that we do have at the moment.

“We only really have Owen Dale as a winger in our squad now, with Murph going.

“In the last five or six weeks, we’ve done a lot of work to make sure that come the start of the season, we’ve got what we need in the building to play the way we want to play.”