Berg looking forward to Rovers challenge

01 November 2012 10:47

Henning Berg concedes his return to Blackburn feels like a homecoming.

The 43-year-old, who was confirmed a the club's new manager on Wednesday evening, was part of Blackburn's Premier League title-winning team in 1994/95 and came back for a second playing spell three years on from a £5million switch to Manchester United in 1997, going on to captain the team in their League Cup triumph in 2002.

Asked whether it felt like he was coming home, Berg said: "It does actually. Driving in here to get the papers done was a fantastic feeling - the roads were the same, the weather was the same! I've had many, many good memories here. For myself I couldn't be back to a better place. It's different now coming in as a manager, of course. But this is a challenge that I really look forward to."

Berg's previous managerial experience came with Lyn Oslo and Lillestrom in his native Norway, where he spent the last year working as a television pundit.

It was in this role that he offered a scathing assessment of Blackburn's owners, Venky's, in the wake of relegation from the Barclays Premier League last term.

In a now widely circulated quote, he said: "There are no real managers with credibility who would accept a job like that," - views he claims the interview process at Rovers alleviated.

"It's been a frustrating time and I looked at it from the outside," Berg explained. "Now I have spoken to the people inside the club, I know what they're thinking, I know what their ambitions are, I know what they're planning.

"There's no doubt the owners are ambitious. They want to put this club back into the Premier League, they want all the best for this club and I think they've made some important steps.

"They showed it when they put the money in for the players in the summer - Jordan Rhodes, Leon Best, (Danny) Murphy, (Dixon) Etuhu, (Nuno) Gomes.

"They also made changes in the management and I think they've taken good action in the right direction to take this club forward."

Source: PA