Jim Goodwin insists he will have the final say on football matters at Dundee United, with the sporting director model consigned to history.
The Irishman was drafted in as Tannadice boss at the start of March as successor to Liam Fox.
With United four points adrift at the bottom of the Premiership, Goodwin was unable to fashion a great escape.
Despite that, club owner Mark Ogren saw enough from the former Alloa, St Mirren and Aberdeen gaffer to decide he was the correct man to take the club forward, awarding him a two-year contract.
Other recent United bosses worked with Tony Asghar, who resigned as sporting director in February following fan protests.
However, Goodwin is determined to be very much his own man as manager.
The 41-year-old revealed: “I think the structure of the club going forward will be different.
“I am not going to criticise anybody from a manager’s perspective or director of football perspective who has been here in the past because some of those people were involved in bringing the club from the Championship into the Premiership, some of them were involved in taking the club into Europe.
“So I am not going to point the finger of blame at anybody for last season. I played my part in that as well coming in at the latter stages of the season.
“I didn’t fulfil what my objective was, but I am coming in as manager, I am not coming in as head coach.
“I have been given the autonomy to make key decisions where I think improvements need to be made.
“I had a similar situation at St Mirren and Aberdeen where I think it is only right that the manager has got the final say on what happens within the football department.
“There will always be conversations and discussions going on with myself, the chief executive and with the owner.
“They will have their input as well but I have been given assurances that any major decision that is being made is one I have to be fully comfortable with.”
Goodwin is also determined the changes that are currently being implemented at United will be for the club’s long-term benefit and not just a quick fix.
The manager insisted: “Absolutely. I want to leave whenever the time comes to leave Dundee United, whether that’s two, three, five years down the road, I want to make sure I have done my best to make changes behind the scenes.
“As a football club we want to continuously try to make things better.
“Yes, there were a lot of mistakes made last season particularly on the pitch which as a club we have been very honest about.
“The chairman has spoken, the chief executive has spoken, nobody is trying to brush anything under the carpet.
“The most important thing for us now is that we learn from the mistakes we made last season and make sure they don’t happen again going forward.
“But I want to try and improve the whole structure of the football department in particular, to make sure everything is seamless and there is more collaboration and a lot more communication between all the different departments.
“Just so that everything is aligned from the youth academy up to the first team and up the stairs into the boardroom so that we are all on the same page.
“That’s the only way the club can be productive going forward.”
