
Although Mark Hughes has not explicity ruled himself out of the running for the Newcastle job, the Blackburn manager - now the bookies' favourite to succeed Sam Allardyce at St James' Park - said he only really wanted to talk about the win over Bolton.
Faced with repeated questions about his future, Hughes re-iterated that he wanted to focus on his job with Blackburn.
Speaking ahead of the game, Hughes told Sky Sports: "There is a lot of speculation which has been going on for quite some time but my focus today is obviously to get a result for Blackburn Rovers as it always is come match days.
"So really, I don't really want to be talking about speculation that has nothing to do with me. It's a case of getting the lads focused and that is what we are trying to do."
Then after the 2-1 win over Bolton, Hughes was again asked about the Newcastle job. He added: "You keep on trying to draw the speculation out of me.
"It's got nothing to do with me - as a professional football manager then speculation surrounds each and everyone of us when a vacancy comes up.
"But all I can do is work extremely hard like I have always done at Blackburn Rovers."
Hughes thought his team had deserved their victory over Wanderers.
"I thought we were very unlucky to go in at half-time one-nil down," he said.
"[It was] a great strike by the lad [Kevin Nolan, who scored Bolton's goal] but obviously [I was] disappointed that we conceded there.
"Second-half I thought we came out with real determination, real positive aspect to our play and we got our reward in the end.
"I thought over the whole 90 minutes we certainly deserved to win."
Hughes felt Rovers were OK as a team in the first half, and outstanding after the break.
And when asked if his players had shown character to win from behind, Hughes said: "Yes, I think it is something like eight games that we've conceded and then had to try and get back on terms and get something out of games.
"I think there's not many teams this year that have been able to do that on so many occasions. So I think that illustrates the character and determination of the squad.
"There was a lot of speculation surrounding the game today. I thought everyone was very focused," he said, including the management, staff, "everyone surrounding Blackburn today."
"It was important to focus on the job in hand and that was to win a very important Premier League game.
"We have been able to do that and I think that shows a great credit. We have won three games on the belt now, I think ten points out of the last 12 and we are in good nick, we are in the top half of the league and I was pleased with everyone today."
Faced with repeated questions about his future, Hughes re-iterated that he wanted to focus on his job with Blackburn.
Speaking ahead of the game, Hughes told Sky Sports: "There is a lot of speculation which has been going on for quite some time but my focus today is obviously to get a result for Blackburn Rovers as it always is come match days.
"So really, I don't really want to be talking about speculation that has nothing to do with me. It's a case of getting the lads focused and that is what we are trying to do."
Then after the 2-1 win over Bolton, Hughes was again asked about the Newcastle job. He added: "You keep on trying to draw the speculation out of me.
"It's got nothing to do with me - as a professional football manager then speculation surrounds each and everyone of us when a vacancy comes up.
"But all I can do is work extremely hard like I have always done at Blackburn Rovers."
Hughes thought his team had deserved their victory over Wanderers.
"I thought we were very unlucky to go in at half-time one-nil down," he said.
"[It was] a great strike by the lad [Kevin Nolan, who scored Bolton's goal] but obviously [I was] disappointed that we conceded there.
"Second-half I thought we came out with real determination, real positive aspect to our play and we got our reward in the end.
"I thought over the whole 90 minutes we certainly deserved to win."
Hughes felt Rovers were OK as a team in the first half, and outstanding after the break.
And when asked if his players had shown character to win from behind, Hughes said: "Yes, I think it is something like eight games that we've conceded and then had to try and get back on terms and get something out of games.
"I think there's not many teams this year that have been able to do that on so many occasions. So I think that illustrates the character and determination of the squad.
"There was a lot of speculation surrounding the game today. I thought everyone was very focused," he said, including the management, staff, "everyone surrounding Blackburn today."
"It was important to focus on the job in hand and that was to win a very important Premier League game.
"We have been able to do that and I think that shows a great credit. We have won three games on the belt now, I think ten points out of the last 12 and we are in good nick, we are in the top half of the league and I was pleased with everyone today."
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