Oscar de Marcos has announced he intends to play on with Athletic Bilbao next season.

The defender has been at Lezama for 13 seasons, becoming key member of the squad in that time. So far this season, he has made a total of 21 appearances, 17 in LaLiga Santander, two in the Copa del Rey and two in the Spanish Super Cup.

“I've analysed it a lot and the idea is to stay for another year," De Marcos said at a press conference on Wednesday morning.

“It was important for me, sometimes you need to really think about these things. I've given it the thought it needed in all aspects and come to the conclusion it was the right decision to continue for another year."

Athletic face RC Celta in Bilbao this Sunday and are right in the middle of the battle for seventh place, a position which could end up being a route into Europe.

De Marcos said: “We're going to make sure it's down to us. Everything depends on us getting the points we need to be in Europe. The team believes we can do it and every match left is a final to help us achieve that.

“As long as it is possible, we'll keep fighting until the end. We'll need to be consistent. It's going to be very important that we get as many points as we can from the games to come and we'll try to do that.

“We not have a very important match at San Mamés. We need to beat Celta to make good the point we earned against Villarreal. We've been very competitive all season, we haven't necessarily got the result we deserved at times. But in general we've grown a lot."