KEITH Curle hopes to be given the chance to bring on-field stability to Latics by prolonging his spell as head coach, despite chaos ensuing behind the scenes.

Director Barry Owen this week resigned from the club, and sponsors Oldham Vending Services also called for their names to be removed from the front of the team’s shirts with immediate effect.

In addition, HotelRooms 4 U – of which Owen is a part owner – and Identity FS have withdrawn their financial support for the club.

Curle says he has been briefed about all matters, none of which will affect his preparations for the Good Friday or Easter Monday games at home to Stevenage and away to Crawley Town respectively.

And with just eight games of his current contract remaining, he is already looking beyond, and looking to remain at Boundary Park.

“I’d like to think I’m in the running for it,” said Curle of the longer-term managerial situation.

The former Carlisle and Northampton manager signed a deal until the end of the season when he succeeded Harry Kewell at the helm last month – an agreement that he felt had mutual benefits.

“In a short space of time it’s building up relationships with everyone at the football club, and that’s from the top right to the bottom, and seeing and establishing whether I can create the working environment that I think can benefit me, benefit the team, benefit the football club. And then likewise then it’s an opportunity for the football club to see how I work, how I like to work and how I fit into that organisation," Curle added.

“At the end of the day, if everything fits, excellent.

“I think the foundations are good. Ultimately every manager will have their own intricacies and things they think they want to change and improve. There’s a level of improvement that can happen at every football club that’s in League Two, and every football club will want to be at the top of League Two and trying to get promotion out of this division, but there are certain things that need to be in place. The manager is a starting point.

“The massive thing is that the relationships within the football club have got to be right and everyone has got to be on the same page, everybody pulling in the same direction and people being brave enough to make decisions for the right reasons but also then communication. I find it vitally important that the communication at all levels of the football club has to be transparent. That gains clarity for everybody involved in the organisation. Everybody is on the same page, if people make decisions and they’re not the right decisions they’ve made them for the right reasons, you can accept that as long as it’s been communicated well.

“Communication within any organisation – top to bottom – is vital.

“At the minute I’ve got good lines of communication with everybody that I need to speak to, which I think is vitally important.

“When I came in, I heard all the horror stories about the ownership and about the interference that apparently had gone on. I haven’t seen it. I’ve got a sporting director that I have good communication with and I’m aware that he’s got an opinion, but anyone would be disappointed if a sporting director didn’t have an opinion on football.”

And Curle believes he is working well together with sporting director Mohamed Lemsagam.

“I speak to the sporting director probably more than anyone else at the football club,” he explained.

“It’s a relationship that is becoming more and more prevalent in football nowadays, the sporting director role and the head coach role, and you need to have those levels of communication, you need to have that clarity and you need to have that transparency. There’s nothing wrong with having a difference of opinion or a different view. Ultimately, it’s how you manage those conversations, but they’ve got to take place.”

There is not just Curle’s own contract to be addressed this summer but also that of a number of players, including top scorer Conor McAleny. The head coach anticipates being consulted on personnel regardless of his own contract situation.

“I would have thought so. I think the first conversation would be with the manager for next season, or the potential manager for next season,” he said.

“My contract is until May 8, the end of the season, and it’s down to the owners and down to the football club to find out what the decisions are after that.”

As for the off-field matters, Curle added: “I think they are concerns for the CEO and the owners of the football club. That doesn’t impact on my role as team manager.

“I was told about it (on Wednesday) and I was told about the decisions that had been made. That was the information that I was given. Apart from that I don’t think there’s any involvement from myself as a manager of the footballing department. I’ve been informed that doesn’t have an impact on myself or my role from now to the end of the season.

“I’m aware of it. The players will probably be aware of it but it won’t impact their performance or their environment in any way. That’s a club matter for the CEO and the owners to deal with.”