I’ve no point to prove to United, says McKinnon

MORTON: Former Tangerines boss only focused on rebuilding Ton

Ray McKinnon insists he does not have a point to prove to former club Dundee United after taking over at Greenock Morton.

The 47-year-old was axed as Tannadice boss in October with his side five points adrift of eventual Championship winners St Mirren. But the man who replaced him, Csaba Laszlo, was unable to inspire the Tangerines to better, with his side crashing out of the promotion battle in the play-off semi-finals.

But McKinnon claims his only motivation for taking up his new role at Cappielow is to guide Ton to the Premiership.

McKinnon – who has been handed a one-year rolling deal by chairman Crawford Rae – said: “After six months out I was getting extremely bored – there is only so much you can do in the house.

“But I’m delighted to be back. I feel refreshed, I feel energised, I feel motivated.

“Will I change my approach to management after what happened at United? Absolutely not. I’ve no regrets there. I thought we did an excellent job and I was very pleased with what we achieved.

“I will use all those experiences to come down here and be a better manager.

“I’m not here to prove anybody wrong. I just feel really hungry to be back in football. My passion is strong and that along with Crawford’s vision for the club is making me very excited.”

McKinnon’s first task at Cappielow is to rebuild a squad which currently has a mere four first team players signed up.

The longer term goal is obviously promotion to the Premiership.

He said: “My vision is to try and take this team to the Premiership.

“It’s going to be step-by-step, it’s not going to be overnight, the first port of call is to build a competitive squad.”

He added: “We’ve only got four players signed at the club so the challenge is to rebuild as quickly as possible.

“It’s going to be a challenge but if you look at the flip side of that it’s a blank canvas for me.

“It gives me that flexibility as to how we want to play and how we recruit.

“But we are well aware that we’ve only four players signed so we need to act quickly.”

Picture: SNS. Ray McKinnon was unveiled as Jim Duffy’s successor as Morton manager at Cappielow yesterday.