New United manager Graham Kavanagh (GK) spoke to BBC Radio Cumbria's Mike Zeller (MZ) this morning following his appointment as permanent Blues boss last night, Kavanagh understandably excited about the role:
MZ
How are you doing and how do you feel this morning?
GK
Yeah, very excited, very excited, obviously we have started well with the three wins out of three. John [Nixon] the chairman spoke to me on Saturday morning and said they were going to offer me the job, but obviously we needed to try to discuss the details yesterday. So, we managed to finalise that yesterday now and it is hopefully onwards and upwards and successful times ahead hopefully.
MZ
How ready are you for this appointment?
GK
I think I am as ready to be a manager as I am ever going to be, I think the opportunity at Carlisle is a fantastic one because I already have a very good insight into the players, the mindsets and the strengths and the weaknesses. So, from that point of view I think I am coming into something I already know, I think I have learnt a hell of a lot in the last three weeks about myself and the players and the staff.
MZ
What have you learnt?
GK
Well, management is a 24 hour a day job, I have known that from the very first day, you are on the phone to physiotherapists, to directors, to chairmen, to agents. So, I am learning all that side of it, before I was totally focusing on the football, but now I am organising training with the staff and we are just doing things slightly different. So, I feel it is very positive, I feel everybody at the club is very much right behind it.
We went out and had some food last night, I took all the staff out, and just had a quick chat and said look, the way we have been for the last three weeks has been magnificent and we all need to keep pushing in the same direction if that is possible. If we can ask for a bit more then it will make everyone’s job a bit easier but it will hopefully also give us a platform for success.
MZ
You mentioned that you took the staff out last night, how important are Davie Irons and Tony Caig to you in what you are trying to achieve at Carlisle United?
GK
Well, they have been absolutely amazing along with Neil Dalton the physio and Colin Nixon the kitman and all the staff in the office. I mean everybody has pulled together as I have said, the support they have given me has been absolutely amazing. From day one when Greg Abbott left, John sat us in the boardroom with Andrew Jenkins and said could I juggle the balls at the start and could I take this team forward, and if so we will just see where it goes but at the moment you have one game.
Straight away when we left the boardroom the two boys turned round to me and said look, we think you are the man to take this forward and we want to do everything we can to give you that opportunity. So, to their word they have been magnificent, they have done more than I have asked, they have taken responsibilities on themselves. That has been truly brilliant for me because it has taken a lot of the pressure away from the main stuff which I need to do, which obviously focuses around the team.
MZ
What sort of things have they taken off you?
GK
Well, for instance Tony Caig has decided that he is now doing the scouting as well. Davie Irons I think is 12 years older than me and he has got that worldly experience that I don’t have, he has got that calming presence. There have been aspects where there have been times I think I would have got hot and bothered and Davie has been able to say look, don’t worry, we will get this sorted and what have you. It is just that calming influence and reassuring few words that you need and that we all need at times.
So, I am learning on the job, I am already in the process of my Pro licence which obviously has helped me and hopefully I can graduate in the summer of 2014. So, it is all happening but we all know that results are paramount and performances are paramount also. The players are buying into it, they have got right behind the ideas we are trying to implement and hopefully it brings us success.
MZ
Were you surprised by the reaction of the players to your appointment?
GK
I wasn’t to be honest, I think when Greg left he did me a favour in the sense that when he asked if he could go and address the players on his own and I had no problem with that at all, and I think he got emotional, well he said this, he got pretty emotional in front of the players. With a very young squad they had never seen a manager sacked before and I think because they saw that and the way he was and how he felt, he thanked all the players for their efforts and he said it had been a pleasure working with them.
So, I think a few of them felt that they had let him down and I had to really try to harness that energy if you like. I needed to get players back onside because a lot of them were lacking in confidence, a lot of them were feeling very down on themselves. So, we changed the way we trained, the times we trained, we trained for longer, we did double sessions, we got in on the Friday and we took them all for lunch.
We had a sing-song at the end of it for all the new players and then I decided I wanted to show them a positive video which had some emotional music behind it. That worked, we came in on the Saturday and we got a great performance against Sheffield United, and as I said to the players and what I will continue to say, is that what we have done now isn’t a fluke and it is not by chance.
It is not something that has just literally fallen into our laps and been lucky as we have worked extremely hard. But, as I said to the players and will continue to say, it is only three games, the future will hopefully be bright but we need to keep pushing. As I said to them, what is good enough today won’t be good enough tomorrow, so they are the messages we are sending.