New Waterford manager Marc Bircham has admitted he faces a stiff task but says building the right culture at the club is the key to success.

The appointment of the Londoner to replace Kevin Sheedy continued Waterford's recent habit of making left field appointments from the UK scene and the former Millwall and QPR player has just returned from a stint working for The Bahamas FA.

He acknowledged that other managers might have turned down the Waterford opportunity but the 42-year-old opted to give it a try and is hopeful he can extend his stay beyond this season.

The initial brief is to lift the club off the bottom of the table and owner Lee Power has indicated there will be money in the summer to strengthen his squad - indeed there is strong local speculation that Power may be helped by the support of new investors.

"I am an enthusiastic positive person," said Bircham.

"We are bottom of the league. The only way is up. I work on a gut feeling and I had a gut feeling that I really fancied it. Or maybe I'm mental! We'll know in a couple of months.

"I'd be lying if I said 'It's the best job in the world'. It's different if it's a top of the league team and you can't say no. I weighed it up. I've done my homework on the team and the squad and the owners as in talking to them about getting investment during the window - bringing my own players is vitally important to the work I want to do with the team. And I got everything I wanted to hear from them."

The new boss spent his period in quarantine watching Waterford's games and also studying their opposition and will be in the dugout for their match with Derry on Friday. First team players returned to training this week following a Covid enforced absence and the forfeit of a league game with Sligo Rovers.

Bircham will confirm the rest of his coaching staff this week and says Brian Murphy - who he worked with at QPR - will return to the squad but will not take a role on the backroom. Murphy was exiled under Sheedy and Mike Newell.

Murphy and Daryl Murphy stand apart in the dressing room as senior pros in their thirties and Bircham said the job with the rest of the young group will be to breed good habits.

"With young players, you've got to find ways of engaging with them," he said.

"People talk about a coaching philosophy and I think that's absolute rubbish. You can have a coaching philosophy if you're Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp where if the players you've got aren't buying into your philosophy....Pep spent €200m on a goalkeeper and two full backs because they weren't buying into his philosophy.

"Jurgen Klopp broke the transfer record for a centre half and a goalkeeper because he wanted his philosophy. If you're at a club who can't trade players or buy what you want, your philosophy has got to be let's try and find the best way to win.

"It might be different tactics and playing differently. Culture is a whole different word that I fully believe in. You've got to create a culture at a club where you want to come in every day.

"In my day growing up at Millwall with Mick McCarthy and Ian Evans, the culture was actually created by the older players. It wasn't so much the coaches, it was the older players where they would talk you through how to tackle and how to want the ball and teach you the rights and wrongs.

"Them older pros have gone out of the game. As a coach, you have to wear all different hats, you've got to be a father figure, you've got to be a teacher, you have to be a friend, a disciplinarian and you have to try and mould them all together to be the best you can as a coach and get the best out of the players."