SuperSport United CEO Stan Matthews has blamed the media for stirring speculation on the future of Kaitano Tembo after the team slumped in the title race.

Reports surfaced last week that the club hierarchy is unhappy with the current performance and has started discussing the future of Tembo.

United have gone for nine games without picking a victory to drop to the 6th position on the log standings.

Speaking to KickOff.com, Matthews dismissed the rumours and highlighted some of the things the Zimbabwean gaffer has achieved this season.

“Even though we’ve had a very bad run recently, Kaitano has done an excellent job of transitioning a team that plays more players under the age of 24 than any other club in the PSL,” the CEO said.

“Kaitano has invested a significant amount of game time into our younger players, as we did with Ronwen at age 19, Tebza [Teboho Mokoena], [Luke] Fleurs and [Sipho] Mbule at age 18, and others.

“This will pay off for us as a club next season and beyond. So, while we are obviously disappointed with the way we’ve slipped out of contention [for the league title] after an excellent start, we also see a tremendous amount of progress in the club as a whole.”

He added: “I don’t know why some of the media wants to try place pressure on Kaitano, when the facts now are that, we cannot win the league and we also cannot be relegated.

“We have consciously decided to give some of the younger players game time, as well as assess who will and won’t be part of our set up come the new season.”

Tembo has been at the helm of Matsatsantsa for the past three years after taking over from Eric Tinkler.