Newcastle United caretaker coach Chris Hughton is confident he has the support of the dressing room.

One national newspaper carried a report yesterday from a "dressing room insider" which claimed that the players had asked for Terry Venables to be given the job until the end of the season.

Hughton shrugged off the latest story and reiterated his belief that the Magpies squad are fully behind his attempts to steer them away from relegation.

"To be honest with you, I just dismiss it," he told The Journal.

"I have got a job to be getting on with, just as everybody else at the club has. In these times you're going to get differences of opinion, hear stories that you don't like, get reactions you don't like.

"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.

"It doesn't worry me in the slightest that a player has supposedly said these things. The only thing you can react to is facts. At the moment there is no fact to anything that's been written or from the sources it's supposedly coming from.

"All I can react to is reality, and the reality is we are where we are in the table and we get on with that. I am convinced I still have the dressing room behind me 100%."