Hughton has players’ support

Reports earlier this week claimed the players at the club wanted Terry Venables to replace Hughton as caretaker coach, while Joe Kinnear recovers from the heart sugery he underwent last month.

“I am convinced I still have the dressing room behind me 100 per cent,” said Hughton in the Northern Echo. “It doesn’t worry me in the slightest that a player has supposedly said these things.

“I think the only thing that you can react to are facts. And at the moment there is no fact to anything that’s been written or from the sources that it’s supposedly coming from.

“To be honest with you I just dismiss it.”

He added: “I have got a job to be getting on with, just as everybody else at the club has their own job.

“In these times you’re going to get differences of opinion, hear stories that you don’t like, get reactions you don’t like. I think that if you take notice of what you hear or read then you’re not going to be able to do your job to the best of your ability.

“All I can react to is reality. We’re not winning enough football matches.

“Morale is good on the training ground and I’m comfortable with the mood in the camp.”