DES Buckingham has explained the call to opt for Mark Harris ahead of Dane Scarlett in Oxford United’s dismal defeat at the hands of Middlesbrough.

Oxford United’s head coach believed that Harris’ ability to get in behind the Boro defence would make him more of an offensive threat, pointing to the chance Harris had when he did exactly that.

With the score at 1-1, Ruben Rodrigues slid a pass through for Harris, who looked to poke the ball round Sol Brynn, however the Boro goalkeeper did brilliantly to get a touch on the ball and thwart the U’s striker.

Scarlett replaced Harris seven minutes into the second half, by now with the score at 4-1 to Boro, and the Tottenham Hotspur loanee pulled one back for United when he collected a pass from Tyler Goodrham and fired across goal.

READ ALSO: Win a tour of Wembley during our biggest flash sale of the year

U’s head coach Buckingham said of Scarlett: “He’s doing well when he gets his chances. He is in the box, as he’s starting to show, very dangerous.

“He only needs half a chance in the box, and he takes them. We’ve got two very good centre forwards here in Mark Harris and Dane, who have been sharing that workload.

“We felt that Mark would be able to stretch the game a little bit and create similarly to the chance he did create, and get in behind, which we felt would be important for us to start the game, knowing we could bring Dane on.

“And of course we’ve got Will Goodwin. We’re trying to make use of them in the right space, and it’s a good problem to have.”

Buckingham meanwhile compared Harris’ missed chance to Josh Murphy’s second goal in the Sky Bet League One play-off final victory against Bolton Wanderers.

“It’s a similar one to the Josh Murphy one at Wembley, where Josh takes a big first touch past the keeper and puts it in,” said Buckingham.

“He didn’t quite get a big enough touch and the keeper’s done very well. It hasn’t happened and the most important thing now is that we review it, go back to what we’re good at, and we’ll do that Tuesday.”