AN announcement on the future of manager Jim Smith was put back 24 hours by Oxford United yesterday.

The club's future plans will now be revealed in a press conference this afternoon, ahead of their FA Cup first-round tie against Northwich Victoria.

Chairman Nick Merry and his fellow directors, Ian Lenagan and Smith himself, were set to discuss the way forward at an informal board meeting on Wednesday night.

But Smith did not fly back into the UK from a short break in Spain until yesterday morning.

There have been calls for action in the wake of a run of poor results for Oxford United, who lie 11th in the Blue Square Premier, 15 points behind leaders Aldershot and nine points adrift of the play-off positions.

Darren Patterson is the likely successor if Smith does step down, or as has been rumoured, moves upstairs to become a sporting director.

But if Smith decides to see it out, and try to get the U's back up the table, he will need a big change of fortune. Around half a dozen first-team players are currently injured.

A spokesman at United said that the planned directors' meeting was put back a day because Smith's flight was delayed and also because, with the FA Youth Cup game against Bournemouth - which Merry was watching - going to extra time, there wouldn't have been enough time.

And he explained that the weekly press conference would therefore also be put back a day.

This was because they could only really tackle questions from the media about the management situation after the meeting had taken place.

One person who definitely won't get the Oxford job, however, is Jimmy Quinn, who ironically, was linked to the post last month.

Quinn yesterday signed a new contract at Cambridge which will keep him at the club until 2010.

The former Reading and Swindon Town boss - he managed Northwich as well - was also recently linked to Gillingham and Port Vale.

Quinn said: "The speculation has filtered down to the players because my name has been mentioned in connection with a few teams, so hopefully this will settle everybody down and we can now get on with the job."

And that is exactly what Oxford United's players need now so that they can concentrate on important games coming up.