Nigel Winterburn is still waiting to hear his fate after the dismissal today of Blackburn Rovers manager Paul Ince, but he said he was not shocked to hear that Ince had been "relieved of his duties".
"I'm not shocked in terms of the speculation over the last two weeks. I don't think anything will shock me in football anymore," said the Blackburn defensive coach. "I'm very disappointed to hear that Paul has been relieved of his duties so early in the season. What those reasons are are really lack of results, but I think you'd need to talk to the board and not me as to why it happened so quickly."
Winterburn, who works for Blackburn on a part-time basis, said he does not know whether he will continue in his role at Ewood Park. "I have absolutely no idea. The first thing I would say is that I was delighted when Paul asked me to join the football club, and obviously Blackburn agreeing to let me join them, because it was something that I wanted to do for a long time. Now, Mr Williams [Blackburn chairman John Williams] also knows that if things don't work out and I'm not needed at the football club then that's not a problem on my part — I've said I've always wanted to work for somebody who wanted me to work for them.
"I think now I just need to wait and see what happens and hope to speak to the club at some stage and find out going forward whether they want me to help them out, or, as Paul brought me to the club, am I surplus to requirements."
The former Arsenal and West Ham defender believes that whoever succeeds Ince will have a tough job on their hands keeping Blackburn in the Premier League. "I've said it since I joined the football club that in my eyes the squad isn't big enough, it's not strong enough and it needs players adding to it. And that's the problem that you have with a new manager coming in with the transfer window, if you don't get those signings before the season starts then you have to wait until January. As we've seen, for Paul, that wait was too long for him.
"The players were lively enough all of last week, but it's confidence — confidence is a massive part of a footballer — and if you lose confidence you make silly decisions and you make mistakes and that's really what's happened. Individual errors really cost the team very dearly and you can't keep doing that week-in and week-out."
