'Proactive' Johansson's Motherwell appointment 'very exciting'
· Yahoo Sports
Former Hibernian player Kevin Nicol believes "proactive" Alfred Johansson's appointment as Motherwell manager is "very exciting".
Nicol is assistant at Fredrikstad, who play in the same Norwegian top flight as Johansson's former club Rosenborg.
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Swede Johansson, 35, replaces Jens Berthel Askou, who became a hugely popular figure with the Fir Park faithful. The Dane led Well to fourth place in last season's Scottish Premiership, earning plaudits for the Steelmen's style of play.
Johansson left Norway in May after a two-and-a-half year spell in charge of Rosenborg.
"It is very exciting," Nicol told BBC Scotland. "He is regarded as a proactive, offensive head coach, modern ideas.
"You can tell when he speaks about the game he has got a wide knowledge of football.
"He has learned a lot from being a head coach at a top club in terms of dealing with the media. There are some strong personalities in that Rosenborg dressing room as well.
"The key for him going into Motherwell is, how does he deal with the dressing room in a Scottish environment? I think [it] is a little bit different than a Scandinavian environment, to be honest.
"So, he has got to show enough strength and has got to get the players behind him. That is very important because he had had some issues with a couple of players in his time at Rosenborg, experienced players. It is very important that you get the experienced players on board early if you are going to have success."
Playing a 4-3-3 system, Johansson won 71 of his 131 matches at Rosenborg before being dismissed.
Despite the way it ended, Nicol observes "the club was forced to sell two or three really good players", adding "it is definitely not all his fault that the results weren't very good" over the last six months.
"Hopefully Alfred with a similar philosophy can have just as much success as Jens had in the previous season," said Nicol.
"It is a great chance for Alfred to get back in the game, work in a different culture.
"Scottish football is different, though, and he has to take that into consideration, it is a very physical style of football, he is going to have to get used to a lot of pressure from fans as well when it doesn't go well, perhaps more than in Scandinavia in fact.
"Also players are slightly different. Scandinavian players are very honest and they do the work in general and not all Scottish players, in my experience, are quite like that but we have got more characters [in Scotland]. Usually those players can be your best players so you have to learn to deal with them and encourage them in the right way to get the best out of them."
And news of Johansson's move across the North Sea has been making headlines in Norway.
Former Raith Rovers and Peterhead player Nicol added: "Absolutely, Alfred was head coach of the biggest club in Norway, probably, in Rosenborg so definitely it has been in all the major media outlets.
"People are very happy he has come back in the game and it is a great chance for him because I think everyone recognises in Rosenborg he was a little bit unfortunate with the circumstances he found himself in after the first season there.
"So, it has been a difficult job and a difficult time for him at Rosenborg but hopefully now he can go on to a club on the way up and continue the good work that has been done there."