John Carver has been given assurance that he will remain in charge of Newcastle United for the remaining three games of the season following crunch talks with Lee Charnley earlier today.
After Newcastle sunk to their eighth straight defeat at the King Power Stadium on Saturday, Charnley – the club’s managing director – called for an emergency meeting regarding Carver’s future and speculation that he had been involved in heated rows with the players. Several news outlets expected these talks to result in Carver stepping down as interim boss with Steve McClaren looking a likely option to replace him.
However, the club have ruled out the Derby County manager being appointed as head coach before the end of the season by releasing a statement publicly backing John Carver. This statement reads:
Following the result at Leicester City on Saturday, there has been two days of frank dialogue with John Carver and senior players.
The outcome of those discussions is that the board, John Carver, his staff and players are absolutely focused on our current situation and the three hugely-important fixtures that remain this season, two of which are at St. James’ Park.
All parties accept responsibility for the current situation but are determined, together, to ensure this Club – your Club – retains its Premier League status.
That is the only focus at this time.
According to The Telegraph, the only reason Charnley elected to back the 50-year-old was due to Steve McClaren turning down the chance to take charge of the Magpies for their remaining three fixtures.
The decision not to appoint a new head coach for the remainder of the season comes just 24 hours after Carver claimed his players were not listening to him.
“If I’m honest, I have to admit there’s a chance they’re just not listening to me,” said Carver. “That might be one factor of many, and you have to consider it. You have to consider it and take it into account. But it might be a lot of other things — we might not be good enough, we might not have enough desire to want to defend in the box or score at the other end. There’s lot of factors, but I won’t deny that [the players not listening] could be one of them.”
We asked, via Twitter, what you made of the decision – here are some of your responses:
@GallowgateGroup let's be realistic who would take the job no defenders and 3 tough games to go nobody in there right mind would #nufc
— Sean Casey (@caseysean51) May 4, 2015
https://twitter.com/ciarand_/status/595231819081068546
