Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse is to remain at the Magpies' helm for at least one more season.A one-year contract extension, which takes Malthouse's tenure through to the end of 2008, was announced by club president Eddie McGuire at a media conference at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Thursday.McGuire described Malthouse as the person best equipped to lead the club to a premiership in the shortest possible time and said the renewal of his contract now rather than at the end of the season made perfect sense."Is Mick Malthouse the man we want to have as the leader of our football club? Absolutely," declared McGuire."The reason why we decided to make this announcement today before the season starts is because we believe Mick Malthouse is going to be far better and his team is going to be far better around him knowing that he is planning for an ultimate outcome rather than fighting for his own survival."If, somewhere along the track Mick decided that he wasn't the right man for the job or the board decided that he wasn't, there wouldn’t be any worries about it."The contract is just a formality for us … and it means that we can get set for the next two years going forward."Malthouse said he was looking forward to a successful season and had a word of warning for experts predicting the Magpies would slip out of the eight in 2007."We have got no desire to give up our position inside the eight," Malthouse said."In fact, our M.O. for this year is to improve ourselves from last year - seventh is not good enough.""If there are clubs out there who want to take it off us, well they'll have to beat us on this ground to take it off us."Malthouse, 53, was appointed as Collingwood's senior coach in 2000 and led the club to two grand finals in 2002 and 03.He had previously enjoyed a decade in charge at West Coast for two premierships in 1992 and '94 and, before that, coached Footscray for six seasons.Images taken on Thursday at the MCG. All images copyright Collingwood Football Club.