New Waltham Abbey boss Martin Hayes says the time was right to return to football management after four years out of the game, admitting he felt like he had left a relationship after his exit from last club Dover Athletic.

The 49-year-old succeeded Paul Wickenden last week with the remit of improving on the Abbotts’ 17th-place finish in the Isthmian Division One North last term.

Hayes, who is the brother of Wycombe Wanderers captain Paul, has been doing media work for Arsenal since leaving Dover in January 2011 and despite having other opportunities, believes now is the time for his return.

“I started to feel like the time was right to come back into football,” explained Hayes. “I was looking for an opportunity where I could try to build something and see if we could get ourselves back up the leagues.

“I have been out of it for some time and it took me a while to want to get back into the game. I needed to really get the love back for it so I was not bothered for a while,” he explained.

“I was getting to the point where I wanted to get back into it. I want to finish on a high after the disappointment of Dover. When I left Dover it was like I had just come out of a relationship and I did not want to speak to anyone or think about football at all.”

Hayes, who made his name as a player with Arsenal, Celtic and Swansea City, insists there is no firm objective for next season but says improvement on the underwhelming finish of 2014/15 is a must.

“He (chairman John Martin) is looking for improvement on 17th,” stated Hayes. “But there is no massive target from the chairman. He wants to be competitive and we want to win more game than we lose, like every team.

“There are players here who, for various reasons, it was not working for last season so it is my job to make sure we are more competitive.

“Waltham Abbey have been in the Ryman Premier in the last few years so with a little bit of luck we might be able to start building towards that again.”