BRIAN Jensen has spoken of his desire to stay at Burnley, and repay the faith manager Owen Coyle has shown in him this season.

The club's current longest serving player is out of contract in the summer, but after entering into negotiations, is hoping to extend his Clarets career beyond the five years he has clocked up since being released by West Bromwich Albion.

The Danish stopper was signed in the summer of 2003 by former manager Stan Ternent, whose successor, Steve Cotterill, offered him a new three-year deal at the end of the 2004/05 season.

Now Jensen, fondly nicknamed the 'Beast' by supporters, is hoping current boss Coyle can complete a hat-trick to help him fulfil an ambition of seeing out his playing career at Turf Moor, with the ultimate aim of winning promotion to the Premier League.

That opportunity has all but officially passed by this year, following last weekend's 2-1 home defeat to Sheffield United. But the 32-year-old is adamant the club is laying solid foundations for a real push next term, and he is eager to be a part of it.

"I'm hoping I'll still be here," said Jensen.

"I can confirm we are talking but we just need a little bit more confirmation from the gaffer but we'll take it from there.

"Everybody's questioning and everybody thinks I'm going somewhere, but at the moment I'm not going anywhere.

"I'm happy here, my family's settled and I definitely want to stay, so now we just have to see how that develops.

"I've bought a house back home in Denmark because I will go back some day.

"The plans are probably two or three years from now, if we're going to continue here and do really well, why not stay until I'm too old to walk! Why not?

"If they want to keep me then I'll stay.

"It is a big plus (to have the jersey), but I have been in charge of the position before but it's been up and down this season. But the main thing is that the gaffer believes in me and really gave me a big boost.

"He says he wants to keep me as well, so if we can do something I'm happy to stay."

On surviving two managerial changes, he added: "I can't really be that bad!

"I appreciate that somebody can see that I've done something and I think I've been doing reasonably well for Burnley, but hopefully we can increase the performances and do even better so we can get into the Premiership.

"Hopefully we can do that with Burnley and see how it goes from there."

As well as giving an honest assessment of his future, Jensen spoke in an equally candid manner about his recent past, notably the costly mistakes which ultimately led to defeats at Plymouth Argyle and Hull City, how he has agonised over them but come through the disappointment and frustration stronger thanks to the support of his manager.

"You always try to eradicate stuff, but from my point of view the mistakes that I made are probably mistakes that no goalkeepers will make in their whole career; or if they do it's probably once every 10 years," he said.

"It's a fluke but it's really hard to take.

"All the basic stuff you can work at, look at videos and try to analyse.

"But at the end of the day all the games are different; all the runs and all the strikers are different.

"It's always different. It's what goes on, on the pitch at the end of the day and you just have to do all the basic stuff and hopefully do it right.

"As soon as the manager put me back into the team (against Preston) he just gave me a big boost because my head was gone.

"I went back into the team and did reasonably well but two cock-ups put my confidence way down.

"Yes, I've done well for the rest of the game - saved one on ones and stuff, but the only thing at the back of your mind is the mistake, and that's the hardest part, because both of them were the first goal.

"That's the worst part. If it's the third goal or fourth goal you can deal with it better, but they put us on the back foot and that's the thing that hurt the most because you think you've let your team-mates down, the fans, everybody.

"They have travelled a long way to Hull and Plymouth, and then you mess up like that, and you really don't want to do that.

"But at the end of the day we are human, we're just trying to do our jobs and the one thing we need is to get the fans behind us instead of maybe screaming or yelling at us, because we're trying to do our best and we want to do the best for them.

"It's a pressure position. You can get away with going for a cross and missing it and the defenders will help you out and clear it.

"But most times if I make a mistake, it's a goal, so of course it's a little bit of extra pressure, but that's just how it goes.

"I chose to be a goalkeeper and that's just how it is and you just deal with that - it's a part of your job.

"But it's given me a massive boost that he brought me back into the team.

"It shows that he does have confidence in me as well that he wants me to stay at the club, so I'm happy. I'm walking around with a smile on my face again."

But Jensen's joy at his reinstatement is naturally tinged with the disappointment of seeing the play-off chase slip away.

"Everybody was believing that we actually had a really, really good chance this season.

"It's been a bit of a disappointment but at the end of the day we have to crack on with it for next season.

"Mathematically we can still do it but we need to win the last three games, which will be a challenge, but we can do it.

"But then on top of that five other teams have to mess up.

"If you look realistically on it then we have to look forward to next season.

"We are good enough, definitely. We've been on top against most teams this season and we've conceded silly goals so we have to eradicate that and stop the balls going into our net when we're on top.

"If we can do that we have as good a chance as anybody.

"We don't want to stay down there. Even when the old gaffer was here, that was not the goal. The goal was not to stay in this division and be mid-table, the goal was to get into the play-offs or get automatic promotion. Everybody had that. Everybody wants to go up.

"Expectations are always high, and because we've been doing so well this season of course the fans have big expectations. We do as well. We want to get into the play-offs, we want to get into the Premiership as a whole unit - the whole club itself.

"It's only the starting 11 that can do something about it, but we would rather have somebody behind us than somebody booing us - regardless of how it goes.

"We're not trying to offend anybody; we're just trying to win football games, because if we didn't want to do that we shouldn't be here.

"Hopefully everybody can have a good start for next season and have a really, really good go for promotion.

"My biggest dream would be going up with Burnley.

"I've been there with West Brom, but I've been here now for five years, and hopefully more years to come, and that's the only thing you want to do. You want to play in the best league, and if we can do it with Burnley all the better, because we do have the squad, we do have the players to do it.

"There are just a few things that we need to cancel out."