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Murray boosts Sheridan hopes

Gavin Browne
21/ 1/2004

JOHN Sheridan's bid to land the Latics' manager's job on a full-time basis has received a boost from one of his midfield colleagues.

One of the club's new owners Simon Corney has revealed that Paul Murray has personally recommended Sheridan for the job.

Although he has received another five matches to show what he can do while the club waits to come out of administration, Sheridan is the outsider of four candidates.

The other three applicants will be interviewed later this week.

While the likes of Steve Cotterill remain linked with Boundary Park - provided he does not take the vacant job at Bristol Rovers - Mr Corney admitted that Sheridan has done a fine job.

He said: "The lads are definitely playing for him so that's good, but we are a little concerned because we want someone with experience, but I suppose you need to give someone that experience.

"He's still not the favourite for the job but the results speak for themselves - two points from 24 in (Iain) Dowie's last eight games and nine points from six under John.

"I spoke to Paul Murray yesterday and he told me that John has got the backing of the team."

The manager's post was catapulted into the national press last week with feverish speculation that Steve McMahon had resigned as Blackpool manager to take over at Boundary Park.

Halfway through a press conference at Bloomfield Road, McMahon then announced he had changed his mind.

His former England team-mate Stuart Pearce then rejected an approach from Latics.

With reference to the McMahon debacle, Mr Corney denied making any job offer to the Seasiders boss.

He claimed: "We watched events closely but really made no offer to him.

"I suppose we are going to be linked with every manager that becomes available, but we didn't confirm anything to Sky Sports or Blackpool either.

"We spoke to Stuart last week but he decided not to come to us - he wants to be closer to London if he takes a manager's job."

Just to set the seal on an eventful week, the takeover by Mr Corney, Simon Blitz and Danny Gazal was not ratified by the Football League last week as further information was required.

That has now been provided with the club hopeful that they can exit administration within a fortnight.

Mr Blitz added: "We are hopeful it's going to be within the next 10 days.

"The delay was something to do a complication with the purchase of the land - certain covenants needed to be in place but we have resolved that."