OXFORD United’s new head of recruitment has admitted mistakes have been made in previous transfer windows, and that the club will revert back to a model based on younger players.

United confirmed this week that Ed Waldron will step up and replace Mark Thomas, having first joined the club as an unpaid intern in 2017.

After a spell in the recruitment team with French outfit Bordeaux, Waldron returned to the U’s.

He told BBC Radio Oxford’s Five Minute Fans Forum: “We know that mistakes have been made, we know we’ve collectively made errors.

“We’ve assessed those and analysed those, and it’s about moving forward now and what we can do to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

“In terms of the direction we’re heading in, it will be a reset to make sure we go back to what we’re good at.

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“You look at our better players now, use Cameron Brannagan and Elliott Moore as examples.

“Both of those joined the football club with their careers ahead of them, and have grown and improved with the club.

“We need to have those young players in the building, we need to be self-sustainable in time.”

Asked whether United would use data in recruitment, in a similar vein to Brentford and Brighton & Hove Albion, Waldron responded: “It’s not so much a transition because we do that already.

“Not to the same extent because they’re both owned by betting companies, which is massively helpful when you’ve got an unlimited supply of data and resource.

“It’s a constantly evolving area of the game so that’s something that we have to do, to make sure we stay ahead of our competitors.

“It is a data-driven approach, but it’s not the be all and end all.

“Our scouts, and what the manager sees, and what we see when we go to the games is massive and it always will be.

“If you’ve got a player that’s outstanding on data and the reports are terrible, you don’t sign the player – you never sign a player purely off performance data.”

Waldron added: “Over the last week, I’ve been to a League One, National League and League Two game.

“On the weekend, we’ve got someone going to a National League North game, we’ve got games in Scotland covered.

“The network is vast and as we continue to grow the department, it’s something that will increase and we’ll look further afield, and try and find opportunities that maybe we haven’t explored before.”

On the possibility of bringing Lewis Bate back to the club, Waldron said: “We’d all love to bring Lewis Bate back, but we have to be realistic with these things.

“I can see Lewis being in the Championship next year so we don’t want to waste the summer chasing him and then not getting him.”