London – Michael Laudrup intends to stay on as Swansea City manager next season and is in discussions over a new contract, chairman Huw Jenkins revealed on Tuesday.
Laudrup has enjoyed an excellent debut season at the Swansea helm and on Sunday led the south Wales club to the first major title in their history after a 5-0 thrashing of fourth-tier Bradford City in the League Cup final.
Players and staff celebrated the achievement on a bus parade through Swansea city centre on Tuesday and Jenkins used the occasion to ward off potential suitors for Laudrup, whose current contract expires in 2014.
“Personally, I have no issue about the thought of him not being here next season,” Jenkins said.
“I think he will be here and he's stated he would honour his contract.
“Michael has stated before he wants to be here next season. If you look at his career before he came here, he needed to find the right club and stability in himself as a manager.
“He needed the time to show he could work in an environment for a period of years and be successful, which is what top managers are about.
“We felt before he joined this was the right place for that, which has proved to be the case.
“You would think in his own interests it is the right thing to stay with us and see where we get to next season.”
Jenkins accepts that it is impossible to prevent media speculation linking Laudrup to other clubs but said talks about a new contract for the Dane were ongoing.
“We have been talking, but Michael touched upon it himself that if he had a 10-year contract, it makes no difference (to the speculation),” he said.
“We have security until next summer, when his current two-year deal finishes, and we've got a period of time to make sure we have more security on that and that's something we will be looking at over the next few weeks.
“To be fair, when he came here, he said clearly to me he didn't want to be a manager in 10 years and couldn't see himself being in Swansea in three or four years.
“He's said that clearly from day one so there's no surprise there, it's nothing different.
“But with us doing well and him being a past player and a fantastic one for Real Madrid, it's natural he will be touted around.”– Sapa-AFP