Birmingham City boss Alex McLeish has revealed he is close to signing a new contract at St Andrews. Discussions regarding a fresh deal with the Midlands club initially started several months ago, but have taken time to come to fruition.
McLeish is being rewarded by Birmingham after an impressive return to the Premier League last season which saw the club claim a top-10 finish.
"Talks have progressed and I'm just inches away from signing a new contract," said McLeish, whose side host Liverpool on Sunday.
"The figures and everything are fine. We've just got to iron out the rough edges.
"We're pretty close and there are just a couple of technicalities - a release clause and that kind of thing - but it's not excessive from either camp and it's absolutely standard.
"Contracts are not something I like talking about in public, but it will be nice to get it resolved."
McLeish concedes the talks appear to have taken longer to be concluded than initially had been expected.
He said: "I think it was just the timing of the announcement that we were going to have talks in the middle of a hectic season.
"We've kind of let things peter out until the end of the season and then we couldn't pin a date down because either my representatives were busy or (vice-chairman) Peter Pannu's side was busy.
"That kind of wasted a lot of time, but, to be honest, we've only really sat down four or five times to talk about it."
