Newport County have denied manager Justin Edinburgh the opportunity to talk to Portsmouth about their vacant manager's job.
In a statement on their official website released today, it is said that the Exiles' board of directors spoke to the ex-Pompey player and came to the decision not to allow him to talk to Mark Catlin and co.
This is more likely to be because Edinburgh isn't interested in joining Pompey rather than their board being afraid of him being tempted away. After all, the man himself stated that he wasn't interested in leaving and unless he has come from the Harry Redknapp school of integrity, he'll stick to his word.
At this current moment, Richie Barker is still odds-on favourite to become Pompey's next manager and those odds will undoubtedly shorten even further now Steve Coppell, who worked with Barker at Crawley as director of football, also left them today.
The local news reports that Oxford boss Chris Wilder, ex-Coventry manager Andy Thorn, Kevin Dillon and Jimmy Ball are all set to be interviewed in the coming days amongst at least another 40 serious applicants.
David James and Hermann Hreidarsson have also jointly applied for the post whilst there may be late applications from recently sacked managers such as Sean O'Driscoll and Dave Jones.
A target of next Monday has been set for a new manager to be appointed but that deadline may well change as the search continues.