**PRESS CONFERENCE** - Graham Alexander's first press conference as manager of Preston North End in full

Graham, welcome back.

How does it feel to be the manager of this football club that clearly means so much to you?

Yeah, I think it was a little bit surreal yesterday.

It didn't seem real until I had the kit on, to be honest, and I was out on the training pitch.

So it's been in the pipeline for a few days and it's been an awkward few days, to be honest.

But thankfully, neither club had a game to focus on.

So that was good after Bradford's game last Tuesday.

It sort of gave both clubs a chance.

a little bit of breathing space to work together to get it done.

And for me, the weekend went a little bit slow, just itching to get started.

But yesterday, once we got everything sorted, got on the training pitch, that's when I felt like I was at work officially.

And when I got home last night, me and my wife had a little moment about the journey we've had to get to this point.

It has been a journey.

When you went at Fleetwood Town, how different a manager are you to that one who went in straight out

of play? I think as a player, and obviously I played until I was 40, so I was thinking hard about the game and about potentially coaching for the last few years of my career anyway without trying to take the focus off me playing.

But I had an idea about coaching and so forth.

My plan originally was to be a coach and and learn my trade, but I think the little caretaker spell I had at Preston when myself and David Hunsworth took the team for five games, it gave me the book for the management side of it.

I was fortunate enough to get the offer of the academy role here for the first six months, but I had this desire to be a manager.

And it would have been, I think, maybe sensible or comfortable to stay here in the background and work the 18s, maybe whatever it was, and maybe work my way up.

But I thought the actual job of managing Preston North End needed a little bit more than that.

And I decided to sort of spread my wings and and go and be a manager in my own right to sort of earn this opportunity and come back as a bona fide manager.

Probably took me a little bit longer than I maybe first thought when I left, but it's been an incredible journey and I've absolutely loved every minute of it.

But yeah, I've developed, so you develop as a player, you develop as a manager.

But the one thing that's never changed is my burning desire to win games and be successful and actually be grateful for the opportunity I have in football.

I love this sport and that has never diminished and hopefully it will never will.