DES Buckingham hopes Oxford United can upset the form book by picking up a result away against the team with the best home record in Sky Bet League One this season.

No team in the third tier has collected more points on home soil than Blackpool, who have won 10 and drawn three of their 16 games played at Bloomfield Road.

The Seasiders haven’t tasted a league defeat at home since November 28, when they lost 2-1 against Northampton Town.

It’s their home record which has kept Neil Critchley’s side in the chase for the play-off places, sitting eighth in the table, one position behind United, and six points shy of the top six.

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U’s head coach Buckingham said: “I’m expecting a very good game against a very good team, certainly at home. Their form, and their record, is very strong there.

“They’ve got some very good players and they’re on the cusp of those play-off spots, and they’ll be trying to fight to get as many points as they can to get in there.

“It’s our job to go up there and come away with not just a result, but a performance to back it.”

The Tangerines boast an array of attacking threats, with two of them at either end of their careers well known to United supporters.

Kyle Joseph spent last season on loan with the U’s, scoring nine times in 37 league appearances, while 34-year-old Jordan Rhodes has bagged 15 goals in 29 games while on loan from Huddersfield Town this season.

Rhodes had a brief spell with United at the beginning of his career, scoring twice in an FA Cup qualifying round tie at Merthyr Tydfil, while on loan from Ipswich Town.

He has though been described as ‘very doubtful’ for this afternoon’s game due to a rib injury, however Blackpool can still call upon the likes of former Celtic wonderkid Karamoko Dembele and CJ Hamilton, who have 13 assists between them in League One.

Buckingham said: “They’re a very strong attacking side, but you’d expect that of teams in the top half of the table.

“When you look across the teams, ourselves included, they’ve all got the ability to turn it on, on any given day.

“Blackpool we know certainly have that, but so do we.”

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He added: “I think with the table at the moment, there’s probably anyone in the top 10 that could make a run for it.

“We’ve come through the last five or six weeks after being really stretched thin, and it’s about making sure we can keep ourselves in and around where we want to be, and that’s in those play-off spots, or the top two if we can.

“We’re very much in and amongst it, and I’ve spoken before that we should continue to get stronger with players returning, and we’ll try to look forwards, rather than what’s behind us.”