DES Buckingham says Oxford United are ‘close to a couple of new faces coming in’ to get their January transfer window up and running.

United’s head coach said after the New Year’s Day win at Charlton Athletic that he hoped to get a new striker in before tomorrow’s trip to Coventry City in the third round of the Emirates FA Cup, however that now appears unlikely.

It has however remained a busy few days for Buckingham and the U’s recruitment department, so much so that the United boss joked about living with head of recruitment Ed Waldron.

He said: “I told Ed Waldron, our head of recruitment, that we should move in together.

“We gave the players two days off after Charlton because of the hectic schedule we had over Christmas, with the idea of refreshing, but I’ve spoken to Ed every 30 minutes over those two days.

“It’s ever moving and ever changing, but we’ve done a lot of work prior to arriving at this point, to make sure we know what we’ve targeted and we’re already well ahead of where we want to be.

“We’re close to a couple of new faces coming in and a couple of other things.”

READ ALSO: Oisin Smyth admits loan exit was ‘in the conversation’ prior to wonder strike winner

Discussing the window in general, and how he works alongside the recruitment staff, Buckingham said: “It’s Ed’s department and there are a few other guys in there, who work extremely hard to highlight players.

“We’ve got a way we want to play and player profiles that fit off that, we don’t just go and look at what you deem the best player in a team.

“It’s about making sure the player fits what we want to do, and if they do that, they’ll come in and hopefully play well within our system.

“The guys are very clear on that, they’ve done two or three months of work, and in some cases, longer.

“We sit together and spend a lot of time looking at a shortlist of players, and that can be anything between six and eight players for each position.

“We’ll work through which one will be best for us, if we were able to secure it, and then of course you have to go and negotiate with the player and the club, and the different situations that come with each.”

On factoring matters such as injury records when signing a player, Buckingham added: “That’s where it helps having a very clear way of how we want to play, and with those player profiles, it’s not just about the technical and tactical side of the game, but you have to look at the physical components, the age of the player, where they’ve been, the levels they’ve played at, their injury history, how many games they’ve either played or missed, and all of that needs to factor into your recruitment.

“Players that have a chequered injury history, it’s very difficult the older they get, to change that, so it has to factor heavily in, especially for players that we’re looking to sign permanently.”