Saturday 1 April 2017 00:02, UK
David Moyes fully expects to be managing Sunderland next season – even if they are relegated to the Sky Bet Championship.
The Black Cats are currently rock bottom of the Premier League, seven points adrift of safety with 10 games remaining.
However, reports this week claimed Moyes has been informed by chairman Ellis Short that his job is safe no matter what happens and he confirmed this is also his understanding of the situation.
He said: "I always felt I had that from the day I came in. It was always said right away there's probably a bigger job to be done and it might take a bit more time, so if you say that, then you want to stay with it.
"I speak to Ellis quite regularly. We have always said things are fine, we have always said what the plan is. There's a building job going on and hopefully we can try to get it all done together."
Moyes, who succeeded Sam Allardyce in July, is the club's sixth permanent manager in the last four years.
The 53-year-old believes patience is what is required to once again make the club a force to be reckoned with in the North East, but accepts that is an increasingly-rare commodity in football.
Moyes told reporters: "You are all pretty educated fellas, so I would think that you'd have probably seen quite a lot of half-decent managers come through the door here as well, so maybe it's not just the managers.
"But as managers, we take the rap, that's part of the job. If you're not winning, you'll always get criticism. When you're winning, it's a lot easier, but when you're not winning, you'll always have criticism."
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