Gus Poyet has quelled fears that budget restrictions could hasten his departure from Albion.

And he has saluted his flourishing partnership with head of football David Burke.

Poyet made constant references to the bottom-half budget last season while trying to keep the Seagulls in play-off contention in the Championship.

Seeing their ambitious Uruguayan manager linked with other jobs has become a fact of life for Albion but Poyet has revealed a relaxed frame of mind after thrashing out the budget for next season with chairman Tony Bloom.

He said: “Like always we are not going to tell everyone but it is the way it is and I know where I am standing, so everything is clear, no surprises. Everything is fine.

“It’s not about increasing or not increasing, it’s about how you use the budget, if you use part of the money to buy or not, so it depends on things that happen.

“It’s very difficult to know if we are going to get more (money) but I suppose it could be a little bit more and we are going to try to manage the situation in a different way.”

Poyet has developed a close working relationship with Burke, who Albion poached in January from Southampton.

He said: “We need to start thinking in the long term and players finishing contracts.

“That is something a club needs to have sorted out. There have been different people in the head of football operations role. When I arrived it was Barry Lloyd, then it was John Stephenson for a little while, now David has been at the club for six months.

“With the academy coming and things like that you need to start thinking when we make contracts how many finish at the same time. It happens at so many clubs, you have got ten finishing contracts one year and then no one and you have got 25 players under contract, which is a nightmare.

“Those situations, now that we are settled, are going to be easier to manage.

“It’s very, very good with David and I think it’s going to get better and better. He understands what I want. We have got a great relationship. We speak to each other every day and the more we get to know each other the better it will become.”