Bayer Leverkusen coach Roger Schmidt has been given assurances he will still be in charge of the club next season, even if they miss out on a place in Europe.
With seven rounds of the Bundesliga season to go, the Werkself are in sixth place, just a point ahead of seventh-placed Mainz.
Only two points separate them from Schalke in fourth and a place in the Champions League, but Schmidt's future does not depend on them catching the Royal Blues, or holding off Mainz.
"Parting ways was never an issue," the club's director of sport Jonas Boldt told the Rheinische Post newspaper.
"There are no two ways about it, Roger has made mistakes, but when you see the way he works and the passion he instils in the players in training, with his team talks, then we are convinced."
Boldt is so convinced in Schmidt's work that he believes they can still finish inside the top four.
"Why should we make ourselves out to be any smaller than we are? We've made it into the Champions League four times in the past five years and that's not something you can just take for granted," he said.
"We should be confident about the future and always want to be there [in the Champions League]. People working here should not just settle for what we've done in the past, they should roll up their sleeves and look forwards."