Motherwell boss Stevie Hammell says he sold himself to the club and doesn't want to have been given the job just because he's an ex-player and coach.
Hammell, 40, spent 17 years as a player over two spells, from 1999 to 2006 and 2008 to 2018, and was academy director before stepping up to the role as caretaker, after Graham Alexander and Chris Lucketti parted company with the club in the wake of their Europa Conference League exit to Sligo Rovers.
The former defender was yesterday handed a two-year deal as boss, having fended off competition from candidates including Simo Valakari and Paul Lambert.
But Hammell says he got the job on his own merits.
He said: "It feels really good, it feels excellent. I'm really honoured and privileged that the club feel that I'm the best person to take it forward, and I'm ready to go.
"I knew there was a high volume of candidates that applied for the job, and the process they went through was very rigorous and thorough, which I wanted it to be.
"I don't want to just be given this job because I'm an ex-player and have a role at the club.
"Without going into what we spoke about in the meeting, I sold them 'me', what I think I bring to the job, what I think is behind me, and I think I have the full support of the staff here.
"They'll be there for me, I know I can trust them.
"The interview process was a tough one, but I gave them the projections of what I see as the club going forward, and then not long after the meeting the chairman called me up to the office, spoke to me, and I think he said it was a unanimous decision after the interview.
"That's great to hear, and gives me great confidence, and it was an easy decision for me to say 'yes'.
"The vision going forward, short-term, we need to get after it.
"But after that hopefully we can start to build.
"We will work hard. We want to come in and enjoy being here. We're in a privileged position of working at a great club, but we will work hard. Every day we'll challenge you physically, mentally, and we need to improve tactically."
Hammell says the club will work hard to get it right, but will need a bit of time.
But he says recruitment is at an advanced stage, and wants to build a team fans want to see.
He said: "We do need a little bit of time but I do totally understand that in football you don't get that.
"Short-term, we need to see improvements and in the medium-to-long term, we need a little bit of recruitment, the squad needs a little bit of tweaking here and there.
"There's no secret that we need a couple of attacking options, as well as a couple of other positions.
"We have made enquiries about players. It's tough, recruitment is key, it's so, so important, in bringing the right player in.
"I'd rather sign a player that's a 7/8 out of 10 player that's going to fit into what we're trying to do here, and fit into the culture and environment, than a nine or a 10 that's going to come in and give us problems.
"We need to be clever with it. It's difficult, where we're at, and how late we are with it as well, but when we do it we need to make sure.
"Longer-term we get the younger players that are at the club and coming through the academy, and we slowly integrate them.
"Of course, they need to be ready and capable of doing that, but that's pretty much a shorter version of how I see the club, going forward.
"We'll see a team that plays with intensity a team that fans can come and enjoy watching playing, hopefully.
"I understand it's never always going to be perfect here. It's Motherwell, there are ups and downs every season. But hopefully there are more ups.
"It's going to require a lot of hard work from everybody at the club, every single member of staff.
"I've spoken to them already about how every single member of staff that works here is going to play a vital part in what we want to do, going forward.
"It needs to change from before, it needs to be slightly different. Every manager that comes in would say that, regardless of formation, shape or philosophy."
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