Valencia owner Peter Lim has spoken of his decision to appoint Gary Neville as head coach.

The two men are friends and share several business interests.

Lim said: “I think the decision to change the coach is never a happy one. It is a necessity. Given the situation, first I picked Gary not because he is a good friend; Gary is a good coach, who happened to be a friend. I think that has to be very clear to everyone. I look at him, he has got the potential in him, I knew him for a while and his football knowledge is tremendous.

"He is top pundit in the UK. I chose him because of his knowledge of football and everything that is around football. So as interim manager for the rest of the season, I think that it suits me and I think it will suit the club very well to have him see through the period, and we'll take it from there. That is how I look at it.

"I am very confident about him, it's just the only shortfall is maybe the language. But I believe he can overcome it, because he is a very determined person. More important is his experience, not only as a manager but his playing days, I think he can hold this team together. We have a very young team. I think, because we were playing so well last year, everybody forgets that our team is a very young team.

"I know a lot of people say 'oh no, he has never been a coach,' but I do believe that he has got the ability to become a good coach. He has been an assistant coach with England, and also when he was at Manchester United he was always playing a very important role as a captain. It's common knowledge that Sir Alex Ferguson passed him a lot of training in managing players."