The U’s head coach moved to his hometown club in November following rumoured interest from Sky Bet League One sides Charlton Athletic two months earlier, and Lincoln City, who appointed Michael Skubala as boss three days before Buckingham switched to United.

READ AGAIN: Des Buckingham addresses previous links with Celtic, Charlton and Lincoln

Discussing the potential difference between managing his boyhood team to one he had no prior emotional attachment to, Buckingham told BBC Radio Oxford’s The Dub podcast: “Before I took this job, I had two other jobs in the English Football League that I could’ve taken prior to coming here.

“I think if it had been at one of those other clubs, you still want to show what you can do, and you still want to do well, but if you win or you lose, it doesn’t have that same emotion and connection you have to this place. Not just the club, but the area you grew up in.

“I find it not significantly harder, but there is a little bit more taped to it.”

Get unlimited #oufc news for just £1 in the late September flash salehttps://t.co/I1J5wKVXZ2

— Oxford Mail OUFC (@OxfordMailOUFC) September 18, 2024

He added: “I’ve got quite a large family that are still within the ring road of Oxford. They obviously see a lot of things that are said and written, and so on. They’ve got their own ways of dealing with that.

“When things aren’t going well, people will say what they say, and they’re well within their right to do that.

“It’s difficult if you’re a family member to hear it, but on the spin side of it, when things go well, it’s also nice to hear.”