Oxford United are not looking to recruit a chief executive, with chairman Ian Lenagan confident of fulfilling both roles.

The U’s owner suggested after taking over last month that the club would look into hiring someone for the position after Kelvin Thomas stepped down as chairman.

But after several weeks reviewing the business, Lenagan sees no problem in combining the two positions himself for at least the next 12 months.

He said: “It doesn’t need it, I can do both chairman and chief exec as a job and I can do that in two-and-a-half days a week.

“It has the advantage that there are no politics or confusion.

“When you recruit a new chief executive it’s very difficult to manage change.

“I know what the changes are and the direction I want to take Oxford United in – another chief executive would have his own ideas.”

Lenagan holds both the chairman and chief executive positions at his other club, rugby league giants Wigan Warriors.

He said: “Oxford is a smaller club, it’s easier to run and is a relatively simple business to run.

“Where have we got a hole? There’s a hole in the marketing side and if I was going to look at putting anybody in to help push the business further forward it would be there, partly because Kelvin did that.

“During the course of the next three months I’m more concerned about how to fill that particular role.”