Manchester United chief executive David Gill reveals winger Antonio Valencia had agreed a new ‘long-term’ deal

Manchester United chief executive David Gill has revealed that winger Antonio Valencia has agreed a new contract at the club.

The Premier League champions are currently on a pre-season tour of North America, but Gill revealed that the club have been working behind the scenes to tie down their stars to long-term deals.

“We are in the process of finalising that. Antonio has been away at the Copa America and we’ve been away here in the US, but that’s broadly sorted out,” he said, according to the Daily Mail.

“Antonio initially signed for four years, so he’s got two left. The length of the deal will come out as and when, but it’s a longer-term deal.

“That should be announced next week, when we’re back.”

Meanwhile, new deals are expected to be handed to strikers Chicharito and Dimitar Berbatov – the Bulgarian was left out of the Champions League final squad against Barcelona while questions about his future have continued to circulate.

“There is an option to extend Dimitar’s contract by another year, on the club’s side,” Gill added. “We can do it whenever we want to do it and there are no conditions around it.

“Everyone has been talking about Berbatov from the outside, saying he wants to leave or that we want want him to leave, but we don’t want him to go.

“We want him to stay. He scored over 20 goals last season, so there is no desire on our behalf to see him go. From our perspective he has, effectively, two years to go.

“We have until the end of the season to extend his contract, so we can assess how it goes, talk to him, see how he performs and see what happens.

“I’ve not had one conversation with Dimitar about his future. There has been no correspondence in that respect.

“The decision Alex took leaving Berbatov out of the Champions League final was a decision he took for that particular game.

“It wasn’t a decision taken with a view that we want Dimitar to go, because we don’t.”

Having given defender Chris Smalling a contract extension recently, young Mexican Chicharito is believed to be the next player to sign a new deal.

“Javier came on a five-year deal, as did Chris,” said Gill. “We did Chris because there was a re-negotiation clause in his contract, which we would have done anyway, if he met a certain number of appearances, which he did.

“There’s no such clause in Javier’s contract. Having said that, we intend to address it. But we want to address it when there is no pressure with regards to that issue, so we intend to do it in the autumn.”