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Des Buckingham was delighted Oxford’s new gameplan against Wanderers paid off following a heavy defeat a couple of months prior.
The U’s shipped five goals at the Toughsheet Community Stadium, which led the boss to make changes in a bid to strengthen their promotion push.
Buckingham still refuses to watch the game back but hailed a real team effort as his side got revenge in front of 70,000 supporters at Wembley to book their place in the second tier next season.
“You might not believe me but I never watched that 5-0 back and I never want to see it ever again,” Buckingham grinned.
“That was probably the one thing that kept coming up leading to this game, that scoreline, and I understand the reasons why. But that, for me, was a massive point in changing what we wanted to do, for many different reasons.
“When you play against a team who are set up as well as they are, with some very different players and an experienced manager, you have to come up with a good gameplan.
“We obviously changed how we set up against them, we have watched all of their games since. We thought if we set up a certain way, we might be able to stifle what is a pretty good attacking team.”
The 39-year-old returned to the Kassam Stadium in November after Liam Manning left to take charge at Bristol City.
“This club means so much to so many people and to take it now into the Championship after such a long period away from that level of football, and to do it the way we have against an excellent Bolton Wanderers side, I am delighted,” he added. “To put it into words, I simply can’t.
“I think everybody was excellent today. We had a way we wanted to set up, there is a lot of work involved in that and the players took to it.
“They executed it extremely well. Obviously, Josh (Murphy) getting two goals is wonderful to see because he has been a delight to work with since I walked through the door.
“But I can’t stress enough, that is one of the most complete team performances I have seen since I have been here.”
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