SOCCER:CHRIS HUGHTON remains very much on trial at St James' Park but, as Newcastle United's manager prepares for the club's biggest game of the season, he harbours a grim determination to confound the doubters.

Despite leading his team to the Championship title last season and steering them to their current position of ninth in the Premier League, Hughton has found himself the subject of intense, if unfair, speculation that defeat at home by Sunderland in Sunday’s north-east derby would lead to his dismissal.

Things became so heated that within minutes of an essentially reserve Newcastle side losing Wednesday night’s home League Cup tie to Arsenal 4-0 the club issued a statement, albeit unsigned, reaffirming their support for Hughton. “Chris is our manager and will remain our manager and it is our intention to renegotiate his contract at the end of the year,” it said.

The statement was in response to three home league games in which a solitary point has been collected from meetings with Blackpool, Stoke and Wigan and the decision of bookmakers on Wednesday to suspend betting on Hughton’s possible departure. It was intended to kill a fog of rumour swirling around Tyneside.

This gesture has proved only partly successful. It is rare in England for managers in the final year of their contracts to have not renegotiated an extension by autumn so the gossip will not disappear entirely until pen is put to paper. Virtually all Hughton’s peers remain merely a bad run removed from the sack but the majority are cushioned by minimum two-year arrangements offering generous compensation in the event of dismissal.

The feeling within football is that Mike Ashley, Newcastle’s owner, has not properly recognised the sterling work his manager has done during a time of budgetary restraint on Tyneside and that for former Republic of Ireland international Hughton deserves a longer deal and a higher salary than at present, which has been reported as being around €350,000 a year.

Most people outside the game would regard that as a king’s ransom but it remains extremely low for Premier League circles. Ashley, though, belongs to a branch of modern business thinking very much in tune with these fiscally prudent times which believes in rationing reward.

When Martin Jol appeared on the brink of swapping Ajax for Fulham in the summer and desperately wanted his old Tottenham assistant to become his number two, Hughton was urged by his friends to take the job. He instead made it clear he wanted to remain on Tyneside but could be forgiven for thinking differently were a similar opportunity to arise now.

Much may depend on the identity of the new Newcastle number two to replace Colin Calderwood, who departed to manage Hibernian last week. Although Peter Beardsley joined Newcastle’s backroom staff as very much an Ashley rather than a Hughton appointment during the summer, all parties stress that the in-coming number two, who is due to be appointed soon, will be the manager’s choice.

If this hiring process might be simplified were the managerial contract issue resolved, a longer security of tenure would undeniably strengthen Hughton’s authority in a dressingroom.

While Geordie fans were slow to warm to him, they are now behind Alan Shearer’s successor, preferring to blame the board for the team’s shortcomings.

He may have been a little lenient with the wayward talent that is Andy Carroll but Hughton had the strength to drop Kevin Nolan for the recent home game against Wigan.

Moreover his €4 million acquisition of Cheick Tiote, the impressive Ivory Coast midfielder, from the Dutch club Twente looks a masterstroke while the loan signing of Marseille’s Hatem Ben Arfa seemed similarly inspired until the France international creator broke a leg at Manchester City.

Since then rumours about Alan Pardew, Alan Curbishley, Glenn Hoddle and even Joe Kinnear variously taking over have abounded but, commendably, Hughton has not lost his cool. “My understanding is that I am the manager of this football club,” he said, with typical understatement, yesterday. “I’m proud of that and looking forward to a very big game against Sunderland.”