Exeter manager Matt Taylor said he has a massive decision to make after confirming he has been offered the vacant manager’s job at Sky Bet Championship side Rotherham.
Taylor, who led the Grecians to promotion from League Two last season, revealed he had been offered the role at the New York Stadium with an announcement expected imminently.
“I have a decision to make and I’ll be making that decision within the next 24 hours,” Taylor said after Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Bristol Rovers. “I have been approached and that’s all I can say – I have a decision to make.
“You have to move every now and then and you have to keep looking forward.
“We have had a fantastic period of time with this football club, they are a fantastic group and we have achieved incredible things, not just promotion but the development of the club which is in an absolutely fantastic position right now.
“I can’t say I am decided either way, but I have to make a decision. It comes down to family, the personnel I speak to every day in the changing room and the staff I speak to every day and it will come down to the club.
“It would be a huge wrench to leave, absolutely massive.
“I have given 10 years of service to the football club, four as a player, one-and-three-quarter years as a coach and then three-and-a-quarter years as a manager, so I have certainly done a lot for this football club and I am incredibly proud of what I have achieved alongside a lot of people at this football club.”
Exeter later released a statement confirming the approach.
It read: “The club reluctantly agreed to the request and we await confirmation from Matt regarding his decision as to whether he will accept Rotherham’s offer.
“A further statement will be released once more information is available.”
A brief Rotherham statement said: “We can confirm that initial talks have taken place and remain ongoing.
“Rotherham United will be making no further comment at this time.”
Ryan Loft’s stoppage-time equaliser earned Rovers a point after goals from Exeter’s Jevani Brown (penalty) and Sam Nombe had seen them overturn a 1-0 deficit courtesy of John Marquis’ opener.
Rovers boss Joey Barton said: “We are disappointed we have not taken all three points because it felt our performance, certainly for 89 minutes of it, was worthy of that.
“We have had two disastrous results here and I thought we showed a real level of maturity considering how many young players we had. The character we showed to get back in it with that late equaliser gives us something to build on.
“The difficulty for us was establishing territory and the longer the game went on we started to do that. We scored a really good goal and probably should have scored from some attacks before that and then we let them off the hook by giving away a soft penalty.
“We need to be a bit cuter around the box and it was a hammer blow for us.
“We had a nightmare situation of going 2-1 down and then always worried about how the lads are going to respond to losing. They picked themselves up and Ryan Loft deserved his goal.”
