Football

He had a slow start, trying to find the right team and system with what he inherited and he essentially went back to the similar personnel and formation that McClaren used. It wasn't until the signings of Butterfield and Johnson for a combined £10m that our results started to pick up. The owner clearly has a lot of faith in him by letting go of the purse strings and it is showing signs of paying off.

We tend to start off in a cautious way to see how the opposition set up against us and then make some small changes if needed after the break. This approach is different to the gung ho schteve approach and is probably the reason we have a much better defensive record this season (2nd tightest defence) while still being top goalscorers. Although that stat was helped by a 4-0 score line on Tuesday when Clement changed his formation and line up considerably to shake things up as there were signs that we'd become predictable.

I've got a feeling it will be us and Boro in the automatic places this season, but after the last two seasons I'm not going to get my hopes up too much. I don't think Brighton have the squad depth to continue how they are and Solly March is out for the season now which is a huge blow for them. Hull will be up there, but I can't say I was impressed with them when we played them. I thought Burnley would be challenging more, but they've also dropped off a little, then there's already a decent gap forming below that line with Ipswich currently leading the rest.