Dale board ‘100 per cent’ behind Hill after poor run

CHAIRMAN Andrew Kilpatrick and the Rochdale board of directors are firmly behind manager Keith Hill.

The Dale chief, the club’s most successful ever manager, has come in for criticism from a section of supporters during a run of negative results which has seen them lose three successive league matches by heavy scorelines, conceding 13 and scoring none.

The task gets no easier today with a trip to play-off chasing Peterborough in League One, but the club’s chief executive David Bottomley insisted the board’s belief in Hill remains steadfast.

“The whole board is one hundred per cent behind Keith Hill,” he said. “If you work with Keith on a daily basis you not only recognise why he has survived 12 years in football management, you actually realise why he has been so successful.

“He does absolutely everything by planning, nothing is left to chance, he works intensely with the team and the one thing he loves more than anything is working with and developing players.

“So we are absolutely one hundred per cent behind Keith.

“The football in this division is tough. We go to other clubs in League One and they talk about operating on budgets three, four, five times the size of ours. And these are clubs who, in some cases, have less support than us.”

Dale have boosted their defence by signing Ethan Ebanks-Landell on loan from Wolves while United midfielder Ethan Hamilton has also joined - both until the end of the season.