DES Buckingham pinpointed flying to and from games as one of the marginal gains that teams are using in Sky Bet Championship, but Oxford United currently aren’t.

League leaders Sunderland won 2-1 at Luton Town on Wednesday night, and then flew back to the north east as opposed to travelling via coach.

The U’s travelled up on the coach on Friday morning, in preparation for their clash with the Black Cats.

The time saved with flying allows extra rest and recovery for players, especially for midweek fixtures and longer away trips.

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United head coach Buckingham said: “I think probably 50 per cent of the teams will fly where they can around here, and even those that aren’t used to doing that, for big journeys they will.

“We’re not quite there yet at the moment. We’ve come up and the club has made big strides in the last six months.

“We haven’t quite made those strides yet, to be able to fly, but that is what it is.”

He added: “We’re very clear on what we’re trying to do and where we need to be to get what we want.

“Our aim when we came up was to stay in this league. That hasn’t changed, and it won’t change this year.

“We will come to games like this, and we will lose, and we’ll lose more than we lost in the last season and what people have become used to because that’s the level we’re coming up against.

“Internally, we know we’re good enough, whether it be a West Brom or a Burnley, or here against Sunderland.”