West Ham manager Sam Allardyce says he will finally sign his new contract at the start of next week.
Questions over Allardyce's future at West Ham have lingered despite the Hammers boss guiding the club to 10th in the Barclays Premier League following their promotion. Allardyce insisted in March that he would be penning a new deal "very soon" after productive talks with owners David Gold and David Sullivan, but the contract has yet to be signed.
The 58-year-old says all that will change next week, though, following the Hammers' penultimate game of the season at Everton on Sunday. Allardyce said: "I will be signing my contract very shortly. Early next week will be the right time."
He added: "We are concentrating on Everton. But by early or next midweek I will be looking to put pen to paper."
Paolo Di Canio's departure from Swindon led to speculation that he could replace Allardyce at the end of the season, but Sullivan recently maintained he could never employ the controversial Italian, who has already been snapped up by Sunderland anyway.
The two-month wait for Allardyce to take up West Ham's offer has raised eyebrows, but the former Bolton and Blackburn manager insists the hold-up has been down to wading through vast swathes of legal jargon and the need to secure top-flight survival, rather than because of any problem with the club's owners.
"There were processes we had to go through and put it together in the right way, which it has now," Allardyce said.
"I never thought there would be any problem - and there hasn't.
"There has been some issue with the legal jargon in the contract which I couldn't understand so that has to go to both sides' lawyers to agree and then it gets signed.
"The size of a manager's contract is pretty substantial in terms of responsibilities."
Source: PA
