Hughton in Charge But Still in the Dark on Newcastle Future

A common complaint among football managers concerns the countless phone calls they have to field from often overly "hands-on" chairmen, owners and chief executives. It is a phenomenon Chris Hughton has yet to encounter at Newcastle United. Indeed, the club's caretaker manager could be forgiven for wondering if the St James' Park board actually has his mobile number.

Since being installed as Kevin Keegan's temporary successor Hughton has had minimal contact with Mike Ashley, Derek Llambias and Dennis Wise, Newcastle's owner, managing director and director of football respectively. Asked yesterday if anyone in authority had spoken to him in the wake of Saturday's 3-1 defeat at West Ham, Hughton replied: "No, not at all."

Newcastle have a Carling Cup tie at home to Tottenham Hotspur tonight but he has not been informed if any director will be in attendance, let alone offered insights into the search for Keegan's permanent replacement or ongoing efforts to find someone willing to buy Ashley out. "No, I've been told nothing," he admitted. "I've had no indication about anything."

With Ashley, Llambias and Wise having disappeared in the wake of fans' protests against their regime and last week's disastrous attempt to sell Newcastle in Dubai, Hughton is left as the public face of a club now regarded as "a distressed brand" by business experts.

Judging by yesterday's dignified, courteous and occasionally amusing performance at a media conference that others in his position might have ducked, he is presenting the most stoic front possible. "No, I don't see it as the hardest job in football," he said. "I'm quite enjoying it."

If Hughton, thus far, is betraying no sign of being aged by his responsibilities - despite heading towards his 50th birthday, his looks are sufficiently boyish for one reporter to inquire if he had considered solving Newcastle's problems at full- back by re-registering himself as a player - no amount of airbrushing can disguise the club's current travails.

Behind the scenes it is understood that certain senior players are not so keen to toe the "company man" line and remain angry that no one has bothered to brief them on the turbulence of the past three weeks. Hughton, though, remains resolutely sanguine. "Anything that is above me is something I can't control," he said. "All I can control is this group of players. At this particular moment we just don't know what's going to happen."

Footballers detest uncertainty and, in the wake of three straight defeats, Michael Owen yesterday admitted: "We are all feeling it at the moment. We all liked Kevin Keegan and were sad to see him go. We are as much in the dark as the fans about the next move and it does not make it any easier that Kevin Keegan was very popular."

If Newcastle's players and fans are struggling to adapt to life after Keegan, Hughton faced a far greater shock a year ago. Then Tottenham's No2, he was unceremoniously sacked along with Martin Jol, thereby paving the way for the Juande Ramos era.

Leaving was a huge wrench but he does not do bitterness. "Yes, I'll be having a drink with Juande afterwards," he said. "Spurs was a big part of my life but I left on good terms and I got a magnificent position here." Wingers who played against Hughton say that his game had edge but any spikiness was clearly reserved purely for the pitch.

Accordingly there was not the merest hint of schadenfreude in the caretaker's voice when he discussed a start to the season in which the Carling Cup holders have looked even worse than Newcastle.

"I'm surprised," he reflected. "But Spurs have got more than enough quality to make real progress and I'm sure they will."

His current team's prognosis appears rather less certain.