DES Buckingham will trust his players to act responsibly after allowing them Christmas Day off.

Oxford United begin a gruelling festive schedule this afternoon, with the trip to Northampton Town.

The clash kickstarts a run of four games in 10 days for the U’s, who welcome Cambridge United and Derby County to Grenoble Road on Boxing Day and December 29 respectively, before a New Year’s Day visit to Charlton Athletic.

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Faced with the decision of whether to give his players Christmas Day off or not, United head coach Buckingham has opted to let the squad enjoy December 25 with their families, rather than have them in for training.

He said: “We’ll train Christmas Eve and give the players Christmas Day off. We’ll still get done the work that we need, and this week’s been very beneficial.

“It’s going to be about recovering and adding things in the next couple of days.

“When you train on Christmas Day, the players come in and miss that time with their family in the morning, especially those with kids.

“Some will even travel quite far on that day, so we’ve structured it in a way where we train Christmas Eve and do everything that we need.

“They’ve got a plan, that they will have Christmas Day, and that’s the way that we’ll do it this year. We’ll see the outcome of that come Boxing Day.”

Oxford Mail:

Trusting his players to train, and eat and drink responsibly, on Christmas Day was key for Buckingham, who said: “It’s a group that are very clear on where we are, and we’re very clear on where we want to go, and a group that’s very hungry to try and get there.

“It’s trust regardless of whether it’s a Friday before a Saturday game or on Christmas Day before a Boxing Day game.

“We know how important three points are to us and where it will put us now, but also come the end of the season.”

The U’s head to Northampton this afternoon off the back of Buckingham’s first week where the team didn’t have a midweek game to factor in.

“It’s been really nice this week, it’s the first time since I’ve been at the club where we’ve had a full week and been able to train,” said Buckingham.

“We’ve always had a game on the Tuesday between the Saturday games, so this is the first time we’ve had that, which has given us a lot of time to work on some of the things that we started a week ago.

“We’re still missing five or six first team starting players, but we can’t use that as an excuse.

“We’ve got good players in and around our squad, and we showed that against Reading and Burton.

“We’ll have to make sure we manage all of them coming through the next 10 days, with four games. It’s going to be so important that we’re ready.”