- Rónán MacNamara
- Sat, Apr 01 2023
Keith Long insists that the goal for Waterford is to achieve promotion this season.
Long took charge of the Blues for the first time on Friday night and they romped home to a 7-1 win against Finn Harps.
But Waterford have been beaten in the last two promotion/relegation finals – once in each division – and carried a hangover from November’s loss to UCD into the early portion of the current campaign.
“There’s huge potential for the football club and you know the ambition of the club with the new ownership and the facilities here are first class,” said Long in a press conference on Friday afternoon.
“It’s a city steeped in footballing tradition so, lots of things going for the club.
“Forget about the division we’re in and where we sit in the table, there’s huge potential for growth here so it is a different dynamic to when I came in at Bohemians where it was to build sustainably.
“The goal here is to try get promotion this season, that’s the challenge and it’s the exciting part.
“We want to progress the club further and hopefully we can climb the table; we need to do that quickly.”
The Dubliner was in charge of Bohemians for eight years, a period where he managed the club through some financial difficulties before overseeing the Gypsies return to full-time football before his departure.
Long has been out of football for the last seven months but enters a club who have the resources to challenge for instant success compared to when he was at Dalymount Park.
Should he get the club promoted at the first attempt, he feels the club have the support through the Chairman Andy Pilley, Director of Football Jon Walters and the facilities to keep improving.
“Hopefully I will be a better manager from those experiences.
“The support structure here is much better than when I would have gone into Bohemians at that time in their history so hopefully with that support, facilities and the players and the potential to strengthen the squad in the next window we can achieve our goal at the end of the season.
“We want to get promoted we are very clear on that and I was brought to the club to try and get the team promoted.
“I want to put the best Waterford on the pitch every Friday.
“The bigger picture is that we want to be a thriving Premier Division football club. The short term is to deliver performances and that starts tonight with a win.
“You don’t get anything given to you in football, that’s the way it is in life, you have to earn everything you get and the players have to understand that.
“We have the bones of a decent team and it’s my job to implement a style of play and put a team out that can win football matches.
“Short term is to focus on immediate performances and improve them and to get a buy in from the players and get my ideas across as quickly as possible and if we do that we can climb the table and close the gap.
“It’s still very early days only five games played. It’s exciting, it’s a big, big challenge, it’s different.
“What I've seen from the club so far has been very impressive and I'm eager to get going.”
