IAN MURRAY cut short a recent family holiday to Euro Disney because he was so keen to get going at St Mirren.

That may sound like a set-up line for a lame gag about swapping one Mickey Mouse outfit for another but is an accurate reflection of how things transpired. Murray's body might have been in Paris but his mind was back in Paisley. He had a job to be getting on with and hanging around with the cast from Frozen, while enjoyable for his young family, wasn't getting it done. "I was itching to get back and get started," he says, not even slightly sheepish about his obvious eagerness.

Murray is back in the country but the real work still hasn't really yet begun. We are sitting in his rather bijou manager's office at the St Mirren training complex in Ralston. A maintenance man is diligently tending to the grass outside his window. Mark Spalding, the former Dumbarton coach Murray wants to install as his assistant, is milling around. Later Alan Gow, a free agent who St Mirren may try to re-sign, also pops in. Beyond that it is eerily quiet. St Mirren have only eight senior players signed up for next season and all of them are all still on holiday. It feels like the calm before the storm, a short window of tranquillity before Murray has to start planning training sessions, picking teams, scouting opponents, and all that business. It provides the perfect opportunity for him to take stock and plot out a path for the season ahead.

Murray describes St Mirren as the "ideal club" for him at this time. He would have preferred, of course, for them to have retained their Premiership status last season but, that aside, he thinks it is a coming-together that suits both parties. Murray is still just 34 years old - the third youngest manager in senior Scottish football - but had started to feel stale at Dumbarton. He had been a bold and risky appointment by the part-timers given his inexperience but it was one that paid off. In his two-and-a-half seasons in charge Dumbarton finished fifth in the Championship, then seventh, then fifth again, while also reaching the quarter-finals of the Scottish Cup. It reached the point where Murray felt he could do no more.

"I probably needed a new start," he admits, sipping quickly on a cup of coffee. "Things at Dumbarton had got a bit stale for everyone; the club, myself and the players. I remember saying to one of the staff on the last day of the season that things felt a bit downbeat, weary and tired. So this opportunity has given me the appetite to get going again.

"You know when you're doing a good job or when you're doing poorly and I felt we did an excellent job at Dumbarton. Without blowing our own trumpet, I don't think anyone else could have done any better. The players did incredibly well for us and I felt that if I kept working hard a chance like this would come up in the end."

It is an arrangement he feels suits St Mirren as well. The 2013 League Cup win aside, the last few years have been difficult for the Paisley club and after years of narrowly avoiding relegation they finally succumbed last month. The appointment of Tommy Craig last summer was the catalyst for a wretched campaign that left a disenfranchised support feeling even more frustrated. Murray hopes he can be the man to restore their spirits.

"I needed a new challenge but the club probably needed a change too, a move to a different style," he adds. "Without sounding too downbeat, relegation was probably accepted back in February or March by the supporters and the club. It wasn't as if they were relegated on the last day of the season and it has hit them like a bolt from the blue. So in many ways what happened wasn't a huge surprise.

"Now the expectations aren't maybe as high as they would have been a year ago. When you come down to the Championship it's a tough league to get out of but the play-offs give everyone hope. With the facilities, the stadium, the young players and, hopefully, a good young management team, then it bodes well for the next two to three years."

St Mirren have not played in the second tier of Scottish football for nine years but it is a division that Murray knows well. He would not be drawn on where he expects his new side will finish next season but remains quietly confident.

"Rangers and Hibs have both got bigger budgets and bigger crowds. So we have to be realistic and say they are the two favourites for the title. There's no question about that. And then there's the rest of us. Do we think we can win the league? We do. But we know it will be hard.

"We're not going to proclaim we are going to win the league. Rangers have already said they want to win the league and so have Hibs. The brain surgeon in me tells me they both can't do it! So someone is going to fail. We'll just say we want to aim as high as we can."

Murray, of course, has to construct a team first. He is hopeful of persuading Steven Thompson, the veteran centre forward, and promising midfielder John McGinn to sign new contracts, and then he will turn his thoughts to adding up to eight more. It must be a daunting feeling for any manager to look at a squad list featuring barely enough players to enter the Tennents Sixes but Murray won't be pressured into anything.

"We're not panicking about that and we're not in any huge rush," he said matter-of-factly. "We've made loads of enquiries but we've not offered anyone a contract. But we're confident that eventually we'll get the right players in. It might take us right up until our Petrofac Cup tie on July 25 or even later maybe. Fans in particular get itchy feet as they want players in quickly and some managers like to operate that way as well. And that's fine. But we won't bring someone in for the sake of it."

Anyone signing will also have to agree to Murray's way of doing things. He describes himself as a calm manager - "At Dumbarton I only had a go at the players maybe three times" - but he is determined to put in place a set of rules at St Mirren, including Sunday training sessions, that everyone will have to agree to.

"I'm a young manager so you're going to have guys older than you in the changing room. If they don't want to buy into what you're doing then they can go. It's as simple as that. We're quite honest about it. If they don't want to come in on a Sunday then we're not going to be able to work together."

Murray will head off again on Monday, joining a group at the under-21 European Championships in Prague as part of his Pro License course. Again, though, his head will be elsewhere.

"When I took this job I knew it would be 24/7. Nothing is an issue for me. If I can do it, I will. I can't wait to get into it."