Sheffield Wednesday will delay a formal announcement of who is to take charge of the club's fight for Premiership survival until early next week. Although the Wednesday chairman Dave Richards had promised to name, if not actually install the successor to David Pleat before tomorrow's League meeting with Bolton Wanderers at Hillsborough, the Yorkshire club's search for a man deemed suitable is taking long than had been anticipated.

Wednesday's initial, unofficial short list of possible candidates bore five names but two - Barnsley's Danny Wilson and the former England coach Bobby Robson - have since ruled themselves out of contention.

That leaves Richards and his board of directors with three possibilities - Howard Wilkinson, the Football Association's Technical Director, who managed Wednesday in the Eighties, the former Everton manager Joe Royle and Ray Harford, who is currently working without a contract at First Division West Bromwich Albion.