Bayern Munich's honorary president Franz Beckenbauer has urged Pep Guardiola not to keep the club waiting on a decision over his future.
Guardiola's current contract expires next summer and the Bavarian club's chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said at the weekend that he still expects to have an answer from him by the end of the year.
Beckenbauer feels that a decision would be best arriving sooner rather than later, allowing both the coach and the club to make plans for the coming years.
"I think he already knows this," Beckenbauer told Sport1 television. "He's not going to leave Bayern waiting and then decide at some point in April or May.
"It would be too late then. I expect it to come sooner."
Should Guardiola, who has led Bayern to back-to-back Bundesliga titles as well as the UEFA Super Cup, the FIFA Club World Cup and DFB Pokal during his two years at the helm, decide to move on next year, Beckenbauer would prefer for him to inform them now.
"Bayern would then need to look around, depending on what his answer is," he said. "It's only fair to Bayern."
A 5-1 win over Borussia Dortmund at the weekend saw Bayern extend their lead at the top of the table to seven points.
They can break another league record when they travel to Werder Bremen next weekend, by winning their ninth straight match since the start of the season, but Beckenbauer does not expect them to get through the whole season unbeaten.
"We've only played eight matches and there are still plenty of points to be played for," he said.
"Bayern are going to have a dip -- we saw that last year too. They were equally dominant up to the winter break and then they lost their way a bit in the second half of the season.
"By then, they were already too far ahead to be caught and still managed to win the league.
"The table looks like they are dominating, but it didn't look that way to start with because there were a few tight and lucky wins in there."