This week week has seen Liam Manning introduced to the fans and media after accepting his new role as Head Coach. Liam’s right-hand man is Chris Hogg who took time out from a busy schedule to sit down and chat with iFollow about his new role with the U's.
“I’ve enjoyed it” he said. ”It’s exciting to join although joining in March is new to me and we all understand the situation we are in right now.
“I’ve spent a bit of time getting to know people here and I’m just desperate to get going properly really. I have been made to feel welcome and for us it’s all about giving people that extra little bit of confidence to go and perform, and as a result of that picking up the points that we need at the moment.
“Liam and I met when we were in the Youth Team at Ipswich. I am a year older but we played together there. I was at York City and Ipswich bought me as a schoolboy and I moved there at 16. I was there for four years and then Tony Mowbray, one of my heroes because I am from Middlesbrough, got the Hibs job and took me to Scotland where I spent six or seven years before retiring and moving back to Ipswich, where my wife is from. I had kept in touch with Liam and he was coaching in the Academy then. We had always been had a lot of respect for each other and our thoughts were really aligned.
“We think alike on how we want to play the game and how we want to treat people and develop them. But we have a very good relationship where we can challenge each other as well as supporting each other. We will have different opinions and ideas and it’s important that if we do see things differently then we know it is coming from the right place. We trust each other and it gives us a very good working relationship.
“Coming in, the first 48 hours are always a bit manic but then you get out on the grass and training as we have done this week and we have had a good response from the players.
“There are some good characters and there is good quality. We will add our ideas and we have a clear strategy on where we want to help them. We have seen the team a lot, watched a huge amount of games, and everyone has a chance to show us what they can do and what they bring to the group.
“I have enjoyed the first few days but now we start to get towards the first game and I can’t wait for Morecambe on Saturday.”
See the full interview right now in iFollow