Burnley boss Sean Dyche dismissed speculation linking him to the vacant Everton job after his side continued their impressive start to the Premier League season.
Dyche is among the favourites to replace the sacked Ronald Koeman at Goodison Park and his stock rose further on Saturday as the Clarets snatched a 1-0 victory at Southampton.
Substitute Sam Vokes claimed the late winner against his hometown club to leave high-flying Burnley with 11 points from their opening six away games of the campaign.
“To be honest, the story’s come around and it’s out of my hands. It’s a story that’s away from me, although it’s about me at the moment,” said Dyche, who took over at Turf Moor in 2012.
“I just keep getting on with my business, as I have been doing for five years.
“I’ve had numerous times when I’ve been linked with situations and I just continue to see it clearly and that is to work hard at what I do.
“I continue to do that and the group that I work with quite obviously today have done that again, so the rest of it is noise that’s beyond me.
“There’s not a story there. My story is the Burnley story; five years here, another win today, which is a fantastic win, a clean sheet, Southampton away, a place that’s been historically very, very tough for us to come and get results – both me as a manager and the club – and we’ve won 1-0, that’s the story.”
Southampton dominated proceedings on the south coast but were thwarted by a number of fine saves from Clarets goalkeeper Nick Pope, before Vokes broke the deadlock in the 81st minute with the visitors' only attempt on target.
The hosts, who have managed just nine goals from their 11 league games, were booed off at the final whistle, although Saints manager Mauricio Pellegrino felt they were unlucky not to pick up at least a point.
“The fans feel the same that we feel. It was a painful day for us because we deserved more,” the Argentinian said.
“Obviously I imagine that our fans are disappointed like us. But our fans also know that we played a good game, because football is not about arguments, it’s about emotion.
“It’s difficult to talk about football when you lose. When you lose, you want to kill everybody. This is part of our life.
“I think that we played well, we played much better than Burnley. The only aspect that Burnley was better than us was converting and accuracy and efficiency.
“Our football, our job, you have got something that is unpredictable, something that is amazing and it’s painful at the same time.”
