DES Buckingham hopes a new backroom staff member will reduce injuries at Oxford United.

The U’s announced the appointment of Luke Taylor as head of athletic performance last week.

Taylor, from Marston, helped establish a sports science department at United’s academy from 2011 to 2014, and boasts a wide range of experience on his CV.

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He has worked as a physical performance coach at the FA, plus he spent time as a strength and conditioning coach in the New Zealand set-up, where he worked alongside Buckingham.

Last year saw him take in a stint as a consultant strength and conditioning coach at Aston Villa, while also in his most recent job, which was as head of physical performance with the Wales Women team.

Buckingham said: “When we look at what the benchmarks are for the league, in terms of physical output, how we train and the training programme we design together will allow us to expose our players to those match demands far more often in training.

“We can tailor those demands per position, and that will help us hopefully with a lack of injuries because we can really delve deep into that, and it puts players in a much stronger position to go again and again, whether it’s Saturday-Tuesdays or Saturday-Saturdays, so we don’t have to manage them as much.”