New Motherwell manager sets stall out after Jens Berthel Askou revolution as star's Fir Park future assessed

The former Rosenborg boss has replaced the Dane, who brought an eye-catching brand of football to Fir Park, inspiring them to a fourth-placed Premiership finish. Johansson, who hails from Sweden, faces a tough task in emulating Askou but won’t rip up the successful script in aiming to do so.

He has discussed the position with various figures, and as Askou’s backroom team remains in Lanarkshire, continuing his blueprint will be how they proceed. Johansson says his own imprint will be clear though with the tweaks he makes with their league campaign beginning against Hibs in early August.

What will be Motherwell’s style under Alfred Johansson?

“All the good people here at the club, all the good players that we have right now, it gives you a lot of confidence that we'll be able to continue the journey,” said Johansson. “We want to try to consolidate the style of play. We want to try to build on top of the good foundation that's been here. But in terms of anything else than that, my only expectation is that I'm looking forward to the Conference League qualification games, the first two legs.

“We want to present ourselves as good as possible in these two games. I try to always be narrow-minded in my focus and that's how I go about my things. I think that the way this club is run is with a very strategic approach, where I can't praise enough the process that I've been through with Nick Daws (head of football), and Kyrk MacMillan (chairman) and Brian Caldwell (CEO), where the clarity of how the style of play should be at Motherwell is coming from the club. I think how that was conducted last year was brilliant. I think it was a very brave team that was playing out from the back.

“It was a forward-minded team that wanted to attack the opposition half, go into the box with many bodies, and once again, being really brave on the ball. On top of that, having a real good sense of unity and togetherness in the defensive work, where everyone was working hard for each other. Collective pressing, collective defending when we had to sit deeper for times, backtracking, helping each other. I think that's a pretty good explanation and a pretty good description of how I would want my team to look like. Will there be some small tweaks here and there? Probably. I'm Alfred, so I do my things in the way that I think is the best for the team. So that's how I see it.”

Due diligence was done on Motherwell, and while they have never crossed paths, Askou’s opinion was called upon by his successor. It was a discussion that helped pave the way for Johansson to the Steelmen.

Elijah Just transfer update

“When you're about to go to a new club, when you get asked to be a part of a process to go to another club, then you do your due diligence,” explained the 35-year-old. “You take a lot of references, you speak to people, you try to get to know the people from an outsider perspective as well. So one of those talks was with Jens to understand how he saw the club and the team and everything, and we had a good chat. That was helpful.”

Squad reinforcing will commence at Motherwell with key stars of last term like Callum Slattery, Stephen Welsh and Liam Gordon amongst those to already make way. Others still at the club will be linked with transfers and Elijah Just’s standout debut campaign in claret and amber has been emboldened with a double for New Zealand at the World Cup during their opener versus Iran. Johansson hasn’t spoken with Just but insists speculation is inevitable.

“I haven't caught Elijah yet,” added Johansson. “I think it's fair game to him to be able to be in America and focus with the national team now. He should be able to focus on that. I've focused more on the guys that are actually here and had good talks with them.

“He's a good player and he's a Motherwell player. I think there's always going to be rumours and links. I guess that you'll be asking questions about that pretty often, especially when the window is open, it's going to be a big thing. Talking about expectations, these players getting linked right, left, centre, it's a part of it. I don't focus too much about it.”

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