Essendon coach Matthew Knights addresses his players during Friday night's win over Carlton

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ESSENDON coach Matthew Knights has denied reports the Bombers have commenced contract negotiation talks with his management regarding a potential extension.

Knights said Monday's report in The Age that stated the club was poised to extend his tenure was incorrect.

"The bottom line is, the club has had no contact with my management," he said on Tuesday at Windy Hill. "(Chief executive) Peter Jackson was on record yesterday [Monday] to say he hadn't been given any mantra to move forward with anything.

"My role is to coach players and a team, and that's what I'm concentrating on.

"The things behind the scene with my contact, my manager will deal with.

"I don't really get involved. I don't really take anything as fact until it actually happens. That's the way I work as a person."

Knights is midway through a three-year contract that expires at the end of 2010.

He said he wasn't sure if extension talks would commence this year or next, and that he wasn't concerned either way.

"That's the board's responsibility to make that decision when and how," he said.

"They'll ring Dan Richardson, my manager, and if they want to talk, they can talk and if they don't want to talk, they don't.

"That's the way it is. I think sometimes in this industry we confuse the issue a bit.

"Either the board wants you to carry out a vision and they'll come and speak to you or they won't. That's the way I treat things."