Prior to the Evans takeover, Magilton’s first season in charge was an up and down, inconsistent campaign in which the Blues ultimately finished 14th, one place above the previous season under Royle.

“It was amazing knowing the players as I did as a player, standing back as a manager, there were a lot of changes mentally I had to make,” Magilton recalled. “The obvious one was distance and keeping that distance from players that I knew and knew very well.

“Getting to know them in more detail, more private conversations with players, finding out where they were psychologically, finding out about private things that will remain private, dealing with that.

“As a player you’re selfish, you’re just preparing yourself in the best possible way for the game, so I was developing skills that were not new to me because always when I was sitting in the dressing room I was thinking ‘What’s going through Clapham’s mind? What’s going through Wright’s mind? What’s going through Mowbray’s mind? What’s going through Wilnis’s mind? Are they switched on? Let me have a look. Right, OK’.

“So I used to be trying to play five or six games and then concentrate on my own game, that was just the way I processed things.

“I had good people around me at the time, my strengths weren’t on the training pitch per se on a day-to-day basis because I was still developing my coaching style.

“Thursdays and Fridays was when I came to the fore in terms of how I wanted us to play tactically - here’s how I want us to set-up, set pieces, defensively, without the ball, here’s where their strengths are, here’s what we’re going to do, here’s what we’re going to do with the ball, things like that.

“I was in that comfort zone but developing in the job, and starting to enjoy the job, which is very difficult - set routines, being in early, setting up meetings, getting everybody switched on, the treatment rules, different set of rules medically.

“All things that I wanted in a structure that everyone was going to, one, buy into, and two, live by basically. This was going to be bringing an attitude to everything we were doing.”

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