West Ham co-chairman David Gold has blamed jet-lag for a social media gaffe that suggested he wanted to see Sam Allardyce sacked.
Having travelled with the club on their pre-season tour of New Zealand, Gold favourited a tweet sent to him by a supporter which called for manager Allardyce to be dismissed.
Gold favourited a West Ham supporter's anti-Allardyce tweet
"Is today the day we get rid of BFS?? @davidgold fingers crossed," it read.
"BFS" ("Big Fat Sam") is a derogatory nickname bestowed upon Allardyce by unhappy supporters disillusioned with the style of football adopted by the former Bolton, Newcastle and Blackburn boss.
Allardyce's popularity amongst West Ham fans has plummeted over the last year
Gold, along with co-chairman David Sullivan, stood by the 59-year-old after a series of post-season meetings but uncertainty still surrounds Allardyce's future following two poor performances which ended in defeat on their tour.
With club record signing Andy Carroll once again sidelined for some time through injury, Allardyce will be hoping Ecuador's World Cup golascorer Enner Valencia is awarded a work permit to complete a move to Upton Park and Gold used Twitter to again publicly support the current manager.
"After a 33 hour flight from New Zealand, I was in my car scanning through my tweets and it seems I accidently (sic) favourited one," he wrote.
"It has made some of the papers today so I should clarify that I did not and would never deliberately or intentionally endorse a tweet that questions our manager's position. Lesson: don't use twitter when you're jet lagged!"
Sullivan also seemed to make Allardyce's position more awkward last week when he revealed the board and the boss were at odds over the future of Ravel Morrison - with the owners wanting to tie the England Under-21 international down on a longer contract despite Allardyce suggesting he does not have a future in his side.