DES Buckingham said each player in his Oxford United squad will have an important role to play following the side’s 3-0 defeat at Sheffield United.

Callum O’Hare and Tyrese Campbell gave the Blades a two-goal advantage at half-time, while Jesurun Rak-Sakyi ensured the final half an hour was played with far less intensity when he grabbed the Blades third.

The victory sent the Blades to the top of the Sky Bet Championship table, but left the U’s suffering three defeats on the bounce.

United head coach Buckingham said: “It’s a tough place to come, a team that are top of the table. 

“I thought we gave a good account of ourselves across, until we gave away a throw-in goal.

“When you come to a place where teams haven’t scored in nine hours here, they don’t give up goals lightly. 

“We then had to go chase the game, but we’ve reverted back to the shape that we’re comfortable in, and we’ve done as much as we can to prevent them, but their ambition I’m sure as a club this year is to go up. Ours is to make sure we stay up.

“We need to make sure we bring players back and we revert back to what we’re good at, and that we get ourselves right for what’s coming in the next month.

“We spoke about how important this squad has been. The reality is we haven’t had this squad available to us for the last six to eight weeks.

“We have to utilise the squad, whether it’s to get minutes into them and prepare for what’s coming, and it’s difficult to do because you’re coming up against very good players.

“There were three of their players on the pitch that cost the entire amount of our team, so that’s the reality of what it is.

“We’ve spoken about how important every player is going to be for us to achieve our goals this year, which are very different to their goals.

“It’s about making sure we put ourselves in the best place for what’s to come.

“We’ve got Millwall now on Saturday, we’ve got players back, and we’ve got a good run of games coming up where we can really go back to where we were at the start of the season.”

Buckingham added: “I’ll take responsibility for results. This level is very different to what we’ve been used to.

“We’re probably going to get more results against us than we’ve had in many a season, but I’ll accept that as long as players continue to try to showcase what they can do within the formation and the set-up we have.

“It won’t work every time, but whether it’s belief or confidence within the group, as long as we continue to see that, we’ll always own the result and own the performance.

“Players know their roles. It’s now about doing them as well as we can. If they do that, they’ll put themselves in the best place.”