Russell Martin addressed the media for the first time at Ibrox Stadium this morning, alongside CEO Patrick Stewart and Sporting Director Kevin Thelwell within the Blue Room.
Our new boss spoke on the process of his hiring and how pleased and proud he is to be the boss at the club.
He said: “It is an incredible feeling, so firstly I'm grateful to everyone, to the board, to Patrick, to Kevin for their trust and faith in me.
“It's been a tough and rigorous process, and it's taken some time, but it's what you expect when you want to be a manager of this football club, and a football club of this stature and size and expectation.
“I’m delighted it's ended up with me being in this chair, and I'm extremely grateful for that as well, and now I'm just desperate to get started and excited about what's to come and what we can really get building here.”
After being sacked by Premier League side Southampton in December, following a poor return to life in the English top tier he spoke about why he has waited till the new season to return to football, and importantly, why he chose Rangers.
He said: “There were a few opportunities when I left Southampton, but I no real interest to get straight back in even with some sort of tentative approaches.
“I wanted to take some time to really reflect and review on what we've learnt as a coach and staff, what I've learnt as a person and as a leader and as a manager and as a coach, and I think that time was important
“When this one was first suggested, even with a couple of other opportunities on the horizon in the last few weeks, this was the one I really wanted.”
The spoke of the size of the club, which he experienced during a short loan period in 2018, and his regrets on how that went.
“One, because of the expectation, the size of it, what it means to so many people, the opportunity to come here and experience something completely different to anything in football, that's what I felt when I played here for a very short period.
“That also comes into my mind, probably when I look back on my career as a player, it's the one thing that hurt me a lot was it didn't go very well here”
Martin went into more detail on his playing spell at Ibrox, speaking of how much of a regret it was, and how hopeful he was for a happier, more successful stint at Ibrox this time round.