Jim Smith says he can't understand why Oxford United are being forced to play twice in less than three days.

The U's manager knows his side will be at a disadvantage at Burton Albion on Sunday afternoon because they played at Cambridge last night, while Burton have had an extra two days' rest.

"What I can't understand, because the following week is a free week, is why we can't play Monday night or Tuesday," he said.

"I can understand Burton thinking they'll obviously get a bigger gate on the Sunday and that one or two less days for us.

"But it's one of the requirements of this television deal with Setanta that you have to go along with what they want.

"We could have played Monday night. I think the league should have made teams go through the fixtures they were unhappy with and go back to them (Setanta). But they haven't.

"They could have made us play on the Saturday (tomorrow) and that would have gone to arbitration.

"The league's argument is that we play on a Bank Holiday Monday, which is also twice in three days, and have done for years, but that's a one-off, whereas now you could probably have six of those in a year."

Ironically, after their game against Oxford last night, Cambridge have managed to get their match at home to Farsley Celtic put back.

They were due to play tomorrow, then it was moved to Sunday. But now it has been moved back further, to next Tuesday, because they can't get a doctor to be on call on the Sunday!