Ashford United have publicly backed Jason Whitmore to carry on as manager and he says that stability will help his players on the pitch.

Owner Don Crosbie quashed rumours that former Phoenix boss Steve O’Boyle was on his way to Homelands and confirmed Whitmore would “remain with AUFC for the rest of the season unless he chooses otherwise.”

Mr Crosbie continued: “We have a rebuilding programme that we are committed to and we are all confident that results will improve with the changes that are being set in motion.”

Whitmore, who last week said he was considering his own position, thanked Mr Crosbie for the vote of confidence.

“It’s fantastic,” he said. “I knew that anyway but the reason the club did that was there were a few bits on Twitter where the Phoenix manager had left and there were rumours going round that he was getting the Ashford job.

“I never asked them to do that but I must admit it was really nice – more so for the players.

“Instead of them concentrating on whether or not I’ll be there tomorrow or the next day, they can work on their football rather than thinking ‘if we have a really bad game, we’re out’. It makes a lot of difference.”

Ashford, second-bottom in Bostik South and without a win in eight, go to third-placed Greenwich Borough on Saturday.

They’ll be up against their former goalkeeper George Kamurasi and make the trip on the back of six straight away defeats but Whitmore won’t let statistics put him off.

He said: “You’ve got to battle for every point, it doesn’t matter if they’re top, middle or bottom.

“It’s going to be a tough game, let’s not mess about.

“They’ve got one of the biggest budgets in the league, they spend money on players who could play in League 1 right now and they’ve got some real quality.

“But that doesn’t mean we can’t get anything out of the game.

“If we stay compact and work hard as a unit, like we did for 43 minutes against Whyteleafe on Saturday, we can unsettle them.

“I’m confident we can get something out of the game.”

New signing Sam Zanone is available for the first time but isn’t match fit, while midfielder Joe Bingham is unlikely to last 90 minutes if picked to start.