Evans confident he won't walk away from Stags job this week

Evans says he was promised a top six budget for next season to try to get the Stags out of League Two when he joined the club in November.

He will now go into a meeting with chairman John and chief executive Carolyn Radford tonight or tomorrow and see how the land lies.

Evans has set up meetings with his players for Wednesday to discuss their future and believes he will still be at the helm to conduct those meetings.

“I have no reason to think not,” he said. “But it is a big meeting (with the Radfords).

“I hear people asking Rafael Benitez what he is doing. He has openly said he expects to be at Newcastle but, at the same time, he has a big meeting.

“I am sure he will sit with his owner and have that conversation and see if he gets the support.

“I will sit down with my chairman and chief executive and the one thing is they are great people – 100 per cent honest – and I am sure they will support us in any shape or fashion they can.

“I am expecting that to be totally positive. But I am going to that meeting prepared, if it’s not positive, that I have a decision to make.

“If it is totally positive then supporters will know I am doing the meetings on Wednesday, which I expect to do.”

Once Evans has announced his retained list and who will be leaving, he said he had already made progress with intended replacements.

“I have been speaking to players all week,” he said. “We are well advanced and ready to pursue some. “League One finished last week so you can guess where those players are.

“There won’t be too many from League Two, if any. “As a management team we have always tried to recruit from above, when it’s right. They come from above for a reason - not someone who has been there for five or six games but someone who has played there consistently.

“At Crawley we signed three or four players from Peterborough and they were in the Championship. We try to recruit better players – that is the remit.

“We need as a football club to put certain things in place where we’re fighting for top three as opposed to top seven.”