DES Buckingham was pleased to see a tactical tweak pay off with a win for Oxford United.

The U’s have deployed a 4-3-3 system all season under Buckingham, but with injuries out wide and a run of form which saw eight games without a victory, the formation was altered for the visit of Hull City.

United set up in a 3-4-2-1 shape, and it was summer signing Hidde ter Avest at right wing back who popped up with the only goal of the match against the Tigers.

U’s head coach Buckingham said: “It was a different type of performance with a very different set-up to what we’re used to. The pleasing thing was that we got the result.

“We knew that Hull would want to play in the areas they want to play in, and we worked extremely hard.

“We’d done a little bit of work on that last week, not necessarily on Hull, but in that formation and that shape, to make sure we didn’t have to throw everything on the players come this week if we wanted to change to it.

“We just put a lot more detail around that when we trained. The players took it on board extremely well, and from minute one, it was to press and press aggressively early, or whether it was to sit in block the way we did, certainly after the goal.

“It was so important to making sure we came away from here with the three points.”

He added: “When you change shape, and you’re asking players to do slightly different roles, it does leave yourself exposed at times when they’re not used to it.

“We corrected a couple of those things at half-time, and that made us a lot more secure in the second half, out of possession certainly.

“And then I’ve said this all along, I said it last year, but more importantly I said it this year, we know we are one of the smallest clubs, if not the smallest club in the league for many reasons.

“We have to be extremely smart about how we set up because of that. There’ll be games where we have a lot of the ball, and there’ll be games like this where we want to sit off in a block and make it difficult for the opposition, and frustrate them to then break on them.

“I’m delighted for Hidde on his first start to get the goal which ended up winning the game.”

On wing backs ter Avest and Greg Leigh, Buckingham said: “I thought they grew into the game, certainly Hidde until he got to about 70 minutes and told me he was starting to cramp up, which is understandable considering that’s his first start with us.”