New Leicester City boss Paulo Sousa was formally unveiled to the media yesterday afternoon at the Walkers Stadium after leaving fellow Championship side Swansea City earlier in the week.

Presented by club chairman, Milan Mandaric, Sousa replaces Hull City bound Nigel Pearson at the helm and inherits a pretty healthy looking team after Leicester’s fifth place finish last season.

Mandaric, who has now presided over seven managers at the club, as well as the caretaker partnership of Frank Burrows and Gerry Taggart, welcomed his new man to the club and sees the appointment as a forward step.

“I am delighted to bring in Paulo Sousa and I firmly believe that he is the manager and the man that will take this club forward to where it needs to go. I rate Paulo as a top person, a top football man and a great manager and I’m delighted that he’s here.

“I always say we need progress and we need to step up and as far as I’m concerned this is a step up for the club. I’ve personally admired Paulo’s career as a player and as a manager, especially the style of the game he’s played and I’m quite sure that our supporters will welcome that.”

Milan paid tribute to the work carried out by departing boss Nigel Pearson and expressed his relief at bringing in his first choice replacement.

“With all fairness, we’re here to announce Paulo and look at what we do tomorrow. Nigel has done a great job. I respect the man, a good man, but life goes on and that’s the past. The most important thing for our supporters and our club is that we have a great manager here and I’m delighted that we were able to conclude this rather quickly.

“He’s been our number one target and it’s always great if you can get your number one target. They (Swansea City) were very professional people and Lee Hoos (Leicester City Chief Executive) has done a great job dealing with the procedures of that. I will do everything humanly possible to give Paulo support as I have given every good manager that I’ve had here.”

The former Portugal international becomes the 37th manager in the Foxes’ history and the club’s first non-British manager. After almost reaching the play-offs with Swansea last season, Sousa is looking forward to realising his ambitions at Leicester City.

“I’m delighted to sign with Leicester. It’s a big club, a great club with a great history, but of course, I also want to make my own history. I am very pleased to be here with an ambitious chairman and I’m an ambitious manager as well. Together we want to do a great job for the fans, for the city and for ourselves.”

Sousa outline exactly what he’s looking to achieve, admitting that the Premier League is a genuine target.

“Yes of course the target is that. When you change managers the beginning is not always easy but I am here for that. It’s where I want to be and I think that this club, with the support of Milan, can help me and my players to achieve that.

“There is money to spend on the squad. What we want is to have the right balance with realistic movements, to always be competitive and to fight for promotion. First of all, as a manager I try to adapt to my players and I need to make them better. Of course, we want to be stronger and I have all the support from Milan to do that.”

The former Juventus and Inter Milan midfielder then joked with reporters about the funds his chairman has promised him as well as talking about how he might look to improve the squad.

“Some clubs invest a lot. Our first game at home is against one of the clubs that has invested more (Middlesbrough) and of course they want to get promoted. But, we are quite confident in ourselves and confident in Milan because he’s going to bring in about £20 million to spend!

“We need to get the right balance and I think that we have sectors that we need to add something. But the main thing is to add a little more balance to the squad. We need to have more players ready to play during the season. I don’t need to have a big squad; I need only to have a squad with quality in each sector.

“You need to give me a little more time and I need to understand better what I have, to start to organise. I don’t like to change too much, especially when things are going well. What we want is a better balance in the squad and better quality in some positions.”

A cultured defensive midfielder who played under some of the world’s top managers during an impressive 13-year playing career that took in five countries, Sousa also worked on the coaching staff for the Portuguese national team before taking up the reigns at QPR and then moving to Swansea. Paulo revealed what he expects from his players and has set his sights high for the coming season.

“The main thing I expect, the minimum, is the same ambition as me because I’m a person with a lot of ambition and they need to have a minimum of the same. Second, the approach in training and games with a winning mentality all the time, to win every game.

“All of the players have the chance to prove to myself that they can have the opportunity. After that I’ll analyse the players I don’t know so well. I’ll take my decisions and then after that we start work.

“I don’t only want to be good friend of them, I want to be their manager with respect and to expect from them what’s minimal; what I expect from myself, that ambition, commitment for our work and that passion to put everything into what they do to achieve together. We can achieve always the stars.”

The new man also had a message for Foxes fans, explaining how the supporters will have an important role to play.

“I think they have a very important task. It’s a vital task because they need to support us, they need to believe in us and have confidence. The beginning is always difficult but we have enough quality to approach with confidence and to start the season well because this season, particularly this season, for our side, the first two months are hard and we need to be ready to confront the quality of all our opponents.

“I’m very confident we will be ready to achieve results and then they have an important task to support us, especially in the beginning. We need to deal with expectations but we also need to be realistic. We know the main target. In football you have a lot of factors to perform and get the results we expect. I’m quite confident that together we can build a wining club that are fans can be proud of.”

The City faithful will always be proud of their club and if the classy Portuguese can add to the good work of Nigel Pearson and provide a team capable playing attractive and successful football a return to the Premier League could be just around the corner.