Kevin Keen is relishing a 'great opportunity' as he prepares to take West Ham United to face West Bromwich Albion on Saturday afternoon.
The caretaker manager's mood for the return to Barclays Premier League has been heightened by the prospect of working with Gianfranco Zola from next week as part of the new coaching set-up at the Boleyn Ground. "As a player he was known for his flair, skill and originality and hopefully he'll bring that into the management of West Ham and I'll enjoy working with him.
"It's a great opportunity for me and hopefully everything will go really well and I'm sure it will. I'm ambitious. I want to do things and train with the first-team and make sure that this club keeps going in the right direction. I'm pleased and looking forward to meeting Gianfranco and working with him."
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Keen had a previous period as caretaker manager "for about 36 or 48 hours" between Alan Pardew and Alan Curbishley but has enjoyed this longer spell in charge. "This time has been quite different. I've had to take the training, look after the boys, worry about the international break and things like that and obviously prepare for the game against West Brom.
"That's been my main focus for the week - making sure the players are fit, ready, organised and know what we're up against because West Brom is a tougher game than some people will think ... as far as I'm concerned, the reaction of the players to me and to the training has been excellent. They've been really good and are hungry to do well on Saturday."
Keen has the luxury of a strong squad heading up to the Hawthorns with plenty of decisions in defence, midfield and attack. New international recruits Herita Ilunga and Walter Lopez will be vying with Lucas Neill to start at left-back, James Tomkins is applying pressure on Calum Davenport and Matthew Upson while Italian striker David Di Michele is one of five fit forwards eager for a starting berth.
That range of options should help Keen achieve his goal of football played "very much in the West Ham traditional way". He added: "I want us to play attacking football, quick passing, one-or-two touch, and West Brom are similar in that they play an exciting brand of football. The game will be a good one for the supporters to watch and I'm pretty sure that our supporters will really be behind us and, hopefully, the result and the performance will be as good as some of the training I've seen this week."
It is all a far cry from when he joined the club "in 1983 from school as an apprentice and my first job was cleaning Sir Trevor Brooking, Tom McAllister and Greg Campbell's boots. Tony Carr was my youth team manager and he's still the Academy manager now." Keen is very much focused on the future though and working with new manager Zola. He accepts there is "a bit of responsibility" on him as "very much a West Ham person" to be a key part of the coaching set-up.
While he has learnt from John Lyall through to Curbishley, the manager the fans see on the sidelines on Saturday will be very much his own man. "All those little things you take from them when you think 'Oh, that was good' go into Kevin Keen a little bit. But, at the same time, it will be my personality that's talking before the game and at half-time and after the game. [As a coach] I would like to think I'm quite knowledgeable, enthusiastic and bright."
The same can be said of Zola and Keen, while rightly respectful of the previous manager, is looking forward. "I think the majority of West Ham fans will look at him as someone who was an exciting, bright, inventive footballer who can introduce that to West Ham. It is a new start and I'm looking forward to it and I'm sure he is.
"I'm honoured that the club asked me to be caretaker manager and, even though it's been a week, there's a lot of things that come up that you don't realise when you're reserve team manager.
"You've just got so many more things to think about - the kit man's has things you need to do, the physio has got to tell you about injuries and you've got to worry about the internationals and about West Brom and how they play, rather than with the reserves where I have a group of youngsters who I work with every day and who I know and trust.
"It's just been a completely different experience and I've thoroughly enjoyed it. All I've ever known since I left school is football. As a player I wanted to be the best I could be and I want to be the best coach I can be and if that leads on to management in the future then it's certainly something I might be interested in."