Oxford United boss insists his side won't just sit back and defend their 1-0 lead at Peterborough United

Oxford hold a slender 1-0 lead from Saturday’s semi-final first leg at the Kassam Stadium. Last season they parked the bus at Posh in a League One game and escaped with a 0-0 draw, although that was a different manager operating in very difficult circumstances as Oxford were then fighting against relegation.

Posh host the second leg tonight (8pm kick off).

“We’d be naive to try and do that,” Buckingham told the Oxford Mail. “I’ve never done that, and I don’t want to be that type of coach. We’ve also got players that I’m sure wouldn’t want to do that, and the fans certainly wouldn’t want us to do that.

“We’ve got a way that we want to play, and we will try and do that when we go to their place. When you just defend against a very good team in Peterborough, and the players they have, it becomes a matter of time before you give them half a chance, and that’s sometimes all they need.

“We’ll pay them the respect they rightly deserve, but we’ll make sure we also try and get our game plan right. I’ve spoken a lot now about the players knowing what we do and how to do it, but we just need to perform on the evening. If we stick to what we have control of, we’ll put ourselves in that best spot.

“These are the games that you want to go into. You’ve worked so hard, and the players have had 60-odd games to get to this point. After arriving at this moment, we’re all really just looking forward to what will be an exciting game.”

Extra time and penalties can be deployed if the aggregate scores are level after 90 minutes. The winners will play Bolton Wanderers at Wembley on Saturday, May 18 (4.15pm kick off). The Trotters scrambled past Barnsley 5-4 on aggregate in their semi-final despite losing the home leg 3-2 on Tuesday night.

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