MAY PEN, Clarendon — Geoffrey Maxwell has officially taken charge of Red Stripe Premier League side Humble Lion and completed his first training session at Effortville yesterday.

The former senior national coach replaces Lenworth Hyde and his assistant, Max Straw, at the central Clarendon club after the pair resigned last Tuesday.

Maxwell, who won the Premier League title with Waterhouse in 1998, said his first objective is to steer Humble Lion away from the drop zone.

“The immediate plan is to get them away from the relegation zone and then get them focused to see how far up the ladder we can go because it’s a long way to go,” Maxwell told the Jamaica Observer last evening.

“Only 16 out of a possible 38 games have been played, so there are a lot more matches to go, plus we have the All-Island Knock-out, which is also another target of ours, still to play for,” he added.

“It’s my first day of training with them and I asked them to do a couple things and so far I’m pretty happy with what I’ve seen. As long as they are willing to listen I think we can go a far way,” Maxwell said.

Humble Lion (16 points) are currently one point above the drop zone after suffering their eighth defeat of the season on Sunday, a 5-1 thrashing at Tivoli Gardens.

“I’m really surprise that they are in this position right now because I’ve seen most of the teams in the league and, quite frankly, I think they are better than a lot of them,” said Maxwell, who confirmed that Linval ‘Pala’ Wilson will be his assistant.

‘He’s somebody who I have coached at the Premier League level — he knows me and I know him — so right away we connected,” he said.

A small group of supporters turned up to witness the much-travelled coach in his first training session, but reserved their judgment on his appointment.

“We know that him a big coach, but we just a wait and see what (he) has to offer,” the group reasoned amongst themselves.

Maxwell’s first game will be at home to basement team Savannah SC tomorrow, followed by a local KO fixture against Major League side Wood Hall on Friday.

Two days later, Maxwell comes face to face with his former side, Highgate United, also in a home fixture.

“Those two (Premier League) games are pretty much ‘must-win’ for us in order to break free from the (relegation places),” he said.