Ian Holloway said that he wants to focus on playing to his strengths as a motivator to help improve matters on the pitch at Swindon Town.

The new era at Swindon begins on Saturday with an FA Cup First Round clash with Colchester United at The Nigel Eady County Ground.

When asked ahead of the match what he believed he had learned in his time away from the game, Holloway answered he planned to stick to what he is best at.

He said: “I am a manager and that is all I know; I believe that I am a motivator and I need to motivate my team because at the moment they look a little bit short on confidence.

“The beautiful thing about confidence is that it is only one word and when you have looked it up you know exactly what it means and it is so easy to sort out.

“Confidence is an anticipation of a positive outcome and I have tried to bring that this week and I am almost flat now, I need to charge myself up again to go again because it was that draining but hopefully they have all got a little bit now.

“Rome wasn’t built in a day, football will always go on and the politics can stay wherever that is and all I want to do is stay out on the grass with my team.

“We have a fantastic structure here and I need to make sure that the guidance everyone is getting matches up, so anyone can come into the first team and know what they are doing.

“I need them to go out and play with their own brains, not ‘What does the gaffer want me to do here?’ or ‘The crowd are moaning, I don’t know if I want it.’

“You have to be free to express yourself and I think I can bring that and if you ask them, I think they feel a tad better about themselves.”

The 61-year-old has managed just shy of 1,000 games in senior football, with memorable spells which saw him take both Blackpool and Crystal Palace into the Premier League.

Despite such a strong CV, Holloway maintained that none of that was relevant anymore and he had to prove himself all over again.

He said: “I have only got seven months to start with, I would like it to be a lot longer than that but I didn’t want that either.

“I need to prove to Clem that I know what I am talking about, I need to reinvent myself.

“I don’t need to think about whether I should have changed my style at Blackpool when it wasn’t working in the second half of the season when we were attacking the Premier League and we weren’t quite good enough to win all the time. I should have done that then.

“There have been so many things I could have done differently but all I want to do now at my time of life is use the wonderful advantage I have of having seen it.”