Hughes to stay on at Fulham
The Cottagers boss is believed to have a release clause in his contract which allows him to speak to other clubs about a switch from 30 June. Hughes refused to confirm if the reports were accurate, but the Welshman appears in no doubt over where his future belongs. "When you have all I have in place here, you don't give it up lightly," he told Sky Sports. "There'll be speculation about my future because, if a manager does reasonably well, you get talked about in glowing terms. "But from my point of view, I'm very happy here and it is not my intention to look elsewhere." The strong finish seals a tale of two contrasting halves of the season for Fulham and Hughes, who was under pressure as the club spent much of the opening months around the relegation zone. Hughes maintained his sides are generally stronger in the latter parts of the season and he believes both he and the club are reaping the benefits of their trust in him. "The first part of this season was very difficult for us because we lost Bobby Zamora very early on," said Hughes. "He was a huge loss to the way we wanted to play. "I always knew we just needed to be patient and wait for players to come back, because we weren't playing particularly badly in the first half of the season. "We were just lacking that cutting edge and we needed to get it back and quickly, which we were able to do. "From the second half of the season, I can't speak highly enough of the efforts of the players and staff and everybody who supports the team. I've had fantastic support." The result was somewhat soured by the red card received by Zoltan Gera for a lunge on Thomas Vermaelen just four minutes after being introduced. Gera is out of contract this summer and is expected to leave the club, but Hughes admits he has not given up hope of convincing the Hungarian to stay. "We were desperately disappointed for Zoltan," said Hughes. "I'm still hopeful that he's going to stay next year but he's got options and he's keeping them open and he's within his rights to do that."