Hoddle battles growing disquiet at Wolves

Your support helps us to tell the story

Support Now

Find out moreClose

As your White House correspondent, I ask the tough questions and seek the answers that matter.

Your support enables me to be in the room, pressing for transparency and accountability. Without your contributions, we wouldn't have the resources to challenge those in power.

Your donation makes it possible for us to keep doing this important work, keeping you informed every step of the way to the November election

Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

The Wolverhampton Wanderers chairman, Rick Hayward, has warned his manager Glenn Hoddle that he is "frustrated and disappointed" by the team's slide over recent weeks.

Before last night's game at Burnley, Wolves had totalled just two points and one goal from three successive Championship games against teams in the bottom three. Those results have seen the club drift to the very fringes of the play-off race, with relations between Hoddle, the former Chelsea, Southampton and Tottenham coach, and the board said to have cooled significantly.

And, amid shades of Molineux boardroom missives of the past, Sir Jack Hayward's youngest son said: "I don't like to criticise the players or the manager but we are frustrated and disappointed with how we are doing. The fans are annoyed and perhaps quite rightly. On paper, we have a great squad. I don't know why we can't get three points.

"I'm sure the fans who have paid a lot of money and want results are as frustrated as me. I want to apologise to all our supporters - I am right behind them.

"We have backed Glenn Hoddle all the way. I'm not passing the buck but I don't know what more I can do. We have spent more money than almost everyone else in this division."

Hayward remains optimistic, though, that Wolves can still reach the play-offs, adding: "I still have every faith in the manager and the players. We have to stick together, back the team and cheer them on," he said.

Hoddle, given a rolling one-year contract last summer after taking the reins the previous December, has come under fire from supporters. During the recent defeat at Leicester City, they chanted: "Hoddle for England" and "Hoddle for Leicester".

* Stockport scrapped plans to allow women free admission to last night's League Two match against Rochdale after fears they could be breaching the Sex Discrimination Act. Club director Dan Levy felt he had no option but to withdraw the Valentine's Day offer following complaints.

"We had one or two comments," he said. "The law is the law and we have to keep it. Probably we should have realised this before we put the offer out. But it was definitely well-intentioned."