Graham Alexander has described his return to Preston North End as manager as “surreal”, saying the club feels like home. The 54-year-old was appointed at Deepdale on Monday, leaving League One leaders Bradford City to succeed Paul Heckingbottom.
Alexander is no stranger to the club. He made 372 league appearances for Preston across two spells as a player and retired there at the end of the 2011-12 season aged 40, having had a brief spell as caretaker manager during that same campaign. He turned down the option of starting his coaching career in the club’s academy and has since managed Fleetwood, Scunthorpe, Salford City, Motherwell and MK Dons.
He takes over a North End side sitting second from bottom of the Championship, with six defeats from their opening eight league games, and he has never managed in the Championship before.
“Yesterday was a bit surreal – it didn’t feel real until I had the training kit on,” Alexander told BBC Radio Lancashire. “When I got home last night, me and my wife had a bit of a moment about the journey we’ve had to get to this point.”
Asked whether Preston felt like home, he said: “It does yeah, it does. When I took the Motherwell job it was a big decision from my wife and myself to move to Scotland because we’d been so happy in Preston for 20 years but our kids were moving on. When we decided to move back to England, I gave my wife the choice of where she wanted to live because she’d been following me around for so long. The natural one was either the West Midlands, where we’re both from and our families are from, or Preston and the north west area because of our relationships and how we felt here – and she chose to come back here, which I was hoping she would say. It’s been a special place for us.”
Preston return to league action after the three-week international break with a home game against Millwall on Saturday, 10 October, and Alexander believes the time he has had to work with the squad beforehand will be important as he looks to turn the club’s fortunes around – while stressing that he will not carry over the problems of the past.
“When I’ve took over a couple of other clubs mid-season it’s been late in the week, it’s been Thursday or Friday and then a game, so to have a full two weeks working with them is valuable to us but the proof will be in the pudding when we play Millwall,” he said. “It’s important because there are certain things we really believe in and commit to so a two-week window to implement those things will be good but it will take longer than that to be the full team we are.”
Alexander added that his arrival gives the players a chance to “restart” at the club and that he is “not going to drag anything forward”.