Roy Keane today warned any Sunderland supporters considering confronting him in the technical area to think again. "I don't appreciate people making the effort to come towards the dug-out to see me," said Keane. The Sunderland manager was annoyed that a handful of fans abused him during Tuesday's Carling Cup win against Northampton Town when one man was apprehended by stewards as he made a beeline for Keane.

"I was looking for him afterwards but he'd disappeared, I wanted to tell him what I thought of him. People should stay in their seats," explained the Irishman who laughed off suggestions that he had considered resigning in the wake of such invective.

"Fans shouldn't be approaching managers like that at any football club, they should have more respect," he said. "But I'm just talking about two or three idiots here, not two or three thousand, we've got great support. There's absolutely no chance I'll walk out, why would I do that? I love this club."

Keane's managerial tenure has been bolstered by the sort of financial backing many managers can only dream about and it has emerged that Ellis Short, a Dallas based Irish-American fund manager, has become the major shareholder in the Drumaville Consortium which owns Sunderland and injected £30m into the club's transfer kitty this summer.

The co-founder of Lone Star Funds, a private equity house, Short has a stake of just over 30% in the club and his future input represents another reason why Keane is expected to sign a new contract before his current deal expires next summer.

Negotiations between Sunderland's board and Michael Kennedy, Keane's solicitor, have been going on for some months but the manager - who has not been involved in any direct talks - remains relaxed about the situation. "It could be done tonight, it could be done tomorrow, it could be Christmas or the spring, there's no timescale," he said. "I'm very, very happy at this football club. I count my blessings that I'm the manager of Sunderland."

Keane explained that he could end up extending his agreement at the club for anything between "another season" and "four or five years".