Steve Bruce, the Birmingham City manager, is set to rip up the remaining two years of his contract and sign a new 12-month rolling deal that will increase his salary and decrease the amount of compensation either side has to pay should they part company.

The new package, that is likely to earn Bruce at least £1.6 million, is a reward for promotion last season, the club’s second in his five-and-a-half-years in charge, and should simplify the manager’s terms as Carson Yeung, the new director at St Andrew’s, prepares to complete his takeover.

In the summer of 2004, Bruce signed a five-year deal. That September, he was offered the job as manager of Newcastle United, his home-city club, but, in addition to the loyalty he felt he owed Birmingham, was locked in by a £3 million get-out clause.

“I will be delighted when it’s all done and dusted,” Bruce said. “Bringing in as many players as we have recently, I think it’s important for them to know that there’s some stability.” Bruce’s salary was halved after Birmingham were relegated in 2006.

Billy Davies, the Derby manager, who signed a new three-year contract a fortnight ago, believes it will be more of an achievement if his team retain their status in the Barclays Premier League this season than either of the other two promoted teams.

“Each of us will try and consolidate ourselves in the Premier League,” Davies said. “We’re all in the same boat but at different levels. Birmingham and Sunderland were Premier League clubs who dropped down, with Premier League players and parachute payments; we’re a club that had [regularly] fought relegation, a club that’s come so far in a ten-month period.”