Blues boss Paul Jewell says owner Marcus Evans has dismissed claims that owner Marcus Evans is lining up former Charlton and West Ham boss Alan Curbishley as his replacement. The Town manager spoke to Evans yesterday with the owner continuing to give him his support.
Speaking at this morning’s pre-match press conference, Jewell said: "I spoke with Marcus yesterday and he wants me to stay.
"I’ve got a fantastic and open relationship with him and if he wanted to sound out another manager, he wouldn’t have to do it behind my back, he’d tell me, it’s as simple as that. And having spoken to him yesterday [he isn’t].”
The Town boss says Evans wanted to speak to him after he had said he was considering his position in the wake of the 2-1 defeat at Hull City: "He wanted to talk to me, he’d seen the comments and read them and wanted to know what I was thinking.
"It’s great for me to have the support of the owner. It would be nice if we could get a few results and get a smile on everyone’s face.
"But you’re not going to stop rumours and if read the players or I believed everything everyone told me, I don’t sleep at night anyway, but I definitely wouldn’t sleep if I was worrying about who is going to take my job. If Marcus wants to make a change, he’s going to make a change.”
Jewell, who cut a much more upbeat figure this morning, admits to having made the weekend comments as a reaction to the defeat at Hull which stretched Town’s winless run to 10: "It’s been a tough time lately and I was just so fed up after the game and disappointed with our performance.
"I have to go and do press [after the game] and sometimes you say things in the heat of the moment that when you get home you probably regret.
"I said them, so I’m not going to run away from them, that’s the way I felt at that moment in time. But [since then I have] spoken with Marcus at length and have had a lot of support from football — managers and even players who have played here, I had a lovely text from Lee Bowyer on Saturday night.”
He says he talked to the squad at training yesterday: "I spoke with the staff and the players. You know when you’ve lost the dressing room and I definitely haven’t done that.
"Not every player at this club will want me as manager but not every player at Manchester United would want Sir Alex as manager - there are always people who are not happy.
"The large majority of players have come to me and have said ‘I hope you stay’. I just want to try and ensure that in the short-term we get a few results and hopefully we can move on. I do believe we’re in a false position given the team we’ve got.”
He says he doesn’t want to quit and that the situation is very different to the one at Pride Park when he left tomorrow’s opponents Derby County: "I don’t want to resign. I don’t want to walk out. We’re in a battle at the moment.
"I left Derby County and people think I walked out, but I didn’t really. The owners had told me that if they could afford to sack me they would do, so I said they wouldn’t need to worry about the money, if you’ve lost faith in me, I’ll go.
"That’s not the case here, the owner hasn’t lost faith in me, I’m going to keep going. I know I can’t keep going without winning matches, I understand that.
"But in the last four matches we’ve taken the lead in all of those games and we could be sat here with 10 more points, although it would have been fortuitous on Saturday. But the games against Cardiff, Brighton and Barnsley we could easily have won.”