Oxford United's Worthington Cup clash with Aston Villa will take place on Wednesday, November 6 - and not the U's regular Tuesday night slot.

And although that means that the third-round tie will clash with a pre-booked conference at The Kassam Stadium, United officials are confident that there will be minimal disruption.

However, it does mean that the South Stand's popular Exhibition Bar and restaurant will be out of bounds to football supporters, and that is likely to cause chaos in the other facilities.

The match has been switched from United's normal Tuesday slot because of Blackburn's involvement in the UEFA Cup.

Although Graeme Souness's side only face the relatively short trip to Celtic the previous Thursday, their Premiership clash with Villa has been moved to the Sunday, and as a result, they requested the cup tie with United be moved to another night.

Despite pleas from United, Villa's 'Premiership power' seems to have won the day.

United secretary Mick Brown said: "We will not be able to use the restaurant or exhibition bar for the Aston Villa game and that is obviously a blow, but we have to overcome these problems.

"We will have a small section of the car park taken up with people setting up the other event, but it just means that we will have to work a little bit harder to overcome the problems. It is not an ideal situation, but we have to get on with it."

United boss Ian Atkins was disappointed after hearing his players would have a day less to recover for the home match with Rochdale on November 9.

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