GARY Megson will not be sacked if Wanderers are relegated from the Premier League.

The Whites are facing the prospect of dropping out of the top flight after taking just one point from their last seven games.

But, even if they do go down, the 48-year-old manager will be told his job is safe.

There have been no public votes of confidence, nor will there be, but reliable sources suggest the Wanderers hierarchy will keep faith with the man they appointed last October, when the club was bottom of the table with just five points from 10 games. Megson's brief, when he succeeded Sammy Lee to become the third manager at the Reebok in six months, was to keep the team in the Premiership.

But Wanderers' owner, Eddie Davies, and chairman, Phil Gartside, believed then that they had appointed a man who, should the worst come to the worst, had the qualities to take them back up again.

They still believe that and if, as seems increasingly likely, their seven-season Premiership run ends in May, they will charge Megson with the task of winning promotion at the first attempt, as he did with West Brom in 2004.

Read the full story in The Bolton News on Monday.