Keith Curle has signed a new contract to remain as manager of Carlisle United until the end of the 2017-18 season.

The League Two side have been heavily affected by flooding in recent months, but are just six points short of the playoff places despite having five games in hand on many other teams in the division.

The setbacks led to delays in Curle signing a new contract that was first "agreed" back in November but now he revealed that he is happy to have finally put the issue to bed.

"There are no grey areas whatsoever throughout the whole contract," he told the Carlisle website. "I think that's the right way to do business. You don't employ anyone or buy anything without knowing the full extent of what you're purchasing. You wouldn't buy a house and leave some grey areas so it was a case of the finer details being completely black and white for both parties.

"Some of the content up for discussion was with regard to the structure, the vision and the forward path for success. Whatever you say, to be successful there has to be a plan in place and I'm glad to say that I feel we're planning to be successful together. That is very important to me."

Chairman Andrew Jenkins said of the deal: "The floods have meant it's taken a bit of time to sort things out and there were one or two finer details that needed to be talked about. The good thing is that we've always had a good relationship with Keith and we were always in agreement on the basics of the contract.

"In my opinion, Keith has transformed this football club. We were struggling at the time he joined us but he's introduced working practices in a way I've never seen the club operate before. The planning and preparation that goes into matches, assessments and players is different to what I've seen from other management teams."

Curle's side are next in league action when they travel to promotion rivals Accrington Stanley on Tuesday night.