Rob Edwards insists his full focus is on Middlesbrough and that he loves managing the club, with links to the vacant Wolves job not something he's given any thought to.
Edwards emerged as a ‘prominent candidate’ for Wolves role after the Premier League side sacked Vitor Pereira on Sunday. As of Monday afternoon, neither Boro nor Edwards have had any contact from Wolves. The 44-year-old signed a three-year contract at Boro in the summer and therefore a sizable compensation package would be needed to prise him away from the Riverside.
However, reports in the Midlands now suggest former Boro midfielder Gary O’Neil is set to return to the post, with some bookies even suspending betting. He was sacked last year and replaced by Pereira, but appears most likely at this stage to be returning.
While Edwards understands why he’s been linked to the role at Molineux given his connections to the football club, he insisted he’d not even given it a single thought. His focus is instead on Boro’s clash with Leicester City on Tuesday evening, where Boro are looking to bounce back from their second defeat of the season to Watford.
Edwards said: “I was told about it by my daughter yesterday, so that probably tells you where I am with it all. I can understand it, with my links to the club, but my full focus is on this job here, which is a brilliant job, and trying to turn things around from the weekend in what is a really big game against Leicester.
“It’s speculation stuff, so it's hard for me to comment on anything other than Middlesbrough Football Club, which is where my focus is. We’ve done a decent job so far, all I care about is trying to win tomorrow.
“It’s all speculation. I never get drawn into stuff that’s all hypothetical, and I don’t want to get drawn into that. I love being Middlesbrough manager – head coach, I should say – and that’s all I want to think about. I just want to talk about us and Leicester, that’s it.”
Such speculation regarding the future of a Boro manager disrupted their season when Chris Wilder was linked to the Burnley role back in April 2022. Though he played it down after, his refusal to rule out the possibility caused a distraction which proved harmful to Boro’s top-six aspirations that season.
Reminded of that and asked again of the Wolves links, Edwards added: “All I can say is that I haven’t given it a single thought because all of my focus has been on this. We were in yesterday – I was in here at half seven on Sunday and got home at about half four after doing a full day [of prep work] on Leicester.
“We had a really good recovery day with the boys, and what I hope was a really productive meeting with them. Today, all the focus has been on what’s coming next. I can’t talk about anything else – that’s just the stuff that my daughter is telling me about.”