Dembele joined the U’s from Birmingham City the day before deadline day, with it understood the Blues valued the winger between £1m and £1.5m.

United’s head of football operations Ed Waldron has dismissed speculation that the club paid more than £1m for Dembele.

READ ALSO: Expert lowdown on record signing Siriki Dembele

Waldron told BBC Radio Oxford’s The Dub podcast: “We actually made our first offer to Birmingham in late June, early July, so it was a real long-winded one which went on and dragged on, but to finally get it done was a relief.

“We’ve broken our transfer record, but we haven’t paid a million pounds. Siriki was less than a million. He was our most expensive, but he was less than a million. I saw some wild figures being quoted, which are incorrect.”

Discussing some of the transfer rumours which circulated online during the summer, Waldron said: “There were some wild ones, there always are. Sometimes it’s players you’ve not even thought about, and someone has just out of nowhere and out of nothing, just decided ‘I’m going to link Oxford United to this player’.

“I’ve said it before, in some senses, I see it as a positive. If I was an agent, I would link my player to Oxford United because younger ones that have come in have generally done really well and kicked on, and gone to the next levels.”