DES Buckingham firmly regards Matt Phillips as a winger after enticing the 33-year-old to join Oxford United.

Phillips, who has played as a wing back, in central midfield, and as a centre forward during his career, left West Bromwich Albion as a free agent this summer, after eight years with the club.

Although Phillips has experience of different positions on the field, U’s head coach Buckingham is in no uncertain terms that his tenth summer signing will play primarily out wide.

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Buckingham said: “We know he’s played in various roles. He can play as a centre forward, he’s done the odd role inside as an eight or a 10, but predominantly most of his career has been on the wing, on the right-hand side.

“I think it’s 60 per cent, nearly 70 per cent of his playing time has been on that side, with 10 to 20 per cent on the left, and 10 per cent in the rest of those areas.

“We’ve brought him in here as a right-sided wide player.”

Playing Phillips from the right would see him feature on the side of his favoured foot, allowing him to put in earlier crosses into the penalty box, something mirrored by fellow summer signing Przemyslaw Placheta on the opposite wing.

Buckingham said: “It’s a nice thing to have, and we’ve got Shemmy [Placheta] down the left.

“We’ve got the ability to play inverted in terms of a right-footer on the left or a left-footer on the right, but I like where possible having one of each on either side, so a right-footer on the right and left, and a left-footer on the left and right because it gives you different ways to play.

“He will give us that ability on the right to play those early, low balls in behind backlines.

“He’ll be able to link and go, and he’s very good at reading situations and using players around him to be able to do that.

“On the other side, as we saw last year with Josh Murphy, and I’m sure we’ll see this year with the players we have there, the ability if they want to come in on their right side, it opens up the goal a little bit more for them if they want to shoot.”

Phillips signed on Thursday and didn’t feature at the weekend, as the U’s rounded off pre-season with a 2-0 defeat against Serie B side Palermo.

He is expected to take up to two weeks to get fully up to speed in terms of match fitness and sharpness, due to him being slightly behind the rest of the squad when it comes to pre-season preparation.