Ahead of Saturday’s clash with Oxford United, we caught up with Liam Rice from The Oxford Mail to get the lowdown on the U’s.

What is the mood like around the club?

It is really good. They obviously got off to a flyer with the win against Norwich, which sent out a bit of a message to the rest of the Championship to sort of say, ‘Oxford United are here’.

It wasn’t necessarily the result but also the way they played and pressed so high, forcing Norwich into mistakes. They backed that up with a solid win against Peterborough, which showed how far they have come because they faced Posh in the play-offs last season to get up.

The Coventry result was a bit of a sucker punch because they had to show a different side to their game and be a little bit more aware defensively. Coventry have so many attacking threats but to lose it in the sixth minute of stoppage time with a sloppy backpass, it was a cruel blow. But it is another sign of how far they have come in a short space of time that they are disappointed to lose to Coventry.

What has the summer transfer business looked like?

For both league games, Des Buckingham has named nine of the players who started at Wembley. The only two who haven’t been involved are Josh Murphy, who went to Portsmouth, and Owen Dale who is injured anyway.

He has kept faith with those who got them here despite the busy summer. Those players will probably trickle in slowly, we might even see some against Blackburn. But Des has been sticking to what got them here and fair play to him for having that faith.

How much Championship experience is in the squad?

They have gone for a real mix with the players they have recruited. There are experienced Championship players like Will Vaulks, Matt Phillips, Matt Ingram in goal and then players with perhaps more potential like Przemyslaw Placheta and Louie Sibley.

Some of the loans are younger and have points to prove like Malcolm Ebiowei and Dane Scarlett. The experienced lads have been key, Vaulks has added so much off the pitch.

When you speak to the coaching staff and the players, it doesn’t take long for them to bring it round to Will and what he has brought inside the dressing room and on the training ground. There was a good mix in the window and they might be eyeing up one or two more deals, but they are there now really for where they want to be.

How have Oxford approached games so far this season?

They have gone with different approaches for most of the games. The set formation is a 4-3-3 with one holding midfielder and two pushing higher up, the wingers are really high and wide.

But how they approach it can differ – against Norwich it was high intensity, pressing. It was really aggressive, not allowing Norwich any time on the ball. For Coventry, with respect to what they have going forward it was a little bit more controlled, they were picking the right time to exploit on the counter attack.

Des certainly wants the team to attack the Championship but he is also aware that going gung-ho in every game is not going to be the way forward. They are quite flexible but away from home against a Blackburn team who have been scoring plenty, it will be interesting to see how they approach it.