I think the Play-Off defeat at the end of last season hurt more than ever to be honest. It is bad to go out at any stage, the semi or the final, but the way we played throughout the season and the position that we finished in, plus going into the second-leg with a decent result from the first, we should have at least got to the final. We would have been playing Watford and no disrespect but I thought we were a better team than them but they finished in the higher positions and fair play to them they probably deserved to go up during the season anyway.

If I’m being honest Billy Davies’ departure didn’t surprise me, I had a funny feeling that something might happen during the summer so when all the speculation started it didn’t really come as a surprise. When he eventually left I thought it was inevitable to be honest, but that gave the Club plenty of time to get it sorted and get a new manager in. The staff upheavals during pre-season weren’t very helpful but now we have got the staff in and hopefully we can start the season all together.

The new gaffer has come in and he has been brilliant. He is doing it his own way, the training is a little bit different to when Billy was here and a lot of things are a little bit different but the discipline is still there and he wants us to be an organised team. He’s got his own staff in now which is good for him, we are eventually getting to know each other, obviously the first couple of weeks are a little bit different with new faces around the place and a couple of new players but as pre-season has gone on we have started to understand what the gaffer wants on the pitch and I think you could tell in the performances towards the end of pre-season, we played quite well.

It’s my first pre-season as captain of the club and this year that has brought a little bit of extra responsibility with the new manager coming in. There are little things where Paul might want to know what went on last season in terms of discipline and club fines, we’ve been talking about things like that and trying to get it all set up. I’m a link between the manager and the players so for the tiny details like what to wear for games the gaffer has come and asked me. It’s not so much responsibility but just finding out from the more experienced players.

We’ve brought extra cover in on the left with Danny Pugh’s arrival and I’m happy about that, I played at left-back a lot last season because at one point we only had two full-backs with myself and Tyrone Mears. The previous manager thought that I would be the best one at left-back because I can use my left foot a little bit and that’s why I played there, I ended up playing there for the rest of the season. I’m a right-back first and foremost, I’ve played most of my football at right-back, I feel that I can help the team more at right-back but I’m sure if the occasion comes up for me to play at left-back then I’ll be more than happy to do it but it is good that the manager has brought in extra strength on the left hand side.

The likes of Danny Pugh, Lewis Neal, Simon Whaley and Chris Sedgwick have seen a lot of the ball in pre-season and I think that might come down to the fact that the gaffer was a wide man himself, he was a player that wanted to get on the ball and he wants his wide men to do the same here. They won’t have a better teacher of wing-play than the manager we have got now, he wants us to get plenty of width and plenty of crosses in and plenty of shots. He wants to change us a little bit, the whole team had a great defensive record last season but we didn’t score enough goals, I think he wants to put that right whilst at the same time keeping the defensive qualities that we have. There has been a lot of emphasis in pre-season about attacking play, we’ve seen the wide men, the midfielders, the forwards and even the full-backs getting up, crossing from all areas and taking your chance from shots and crosses.

We’ve benefited from that already, I’m not renowned for my heading but I did score one against Bury last week, I had just give a goal away and I was probably making up for that. I took a run forward, lost my marker, attacked the near post, like a good centre-forward should and I flicked it into the net. My first ever professional goal was a header, back in the day, when I was at Scunthorpe but I’ve only scored one since then in my whole career.

We’ve had some decent pre-season games, especially the Everton and the Man Utd games, it gives you a little taste of the season but nothing can compare to the start of the season and the hurly burly of Championship football, we will get that today against Sheffield Wednesday, they’ll bring a big support, hopefully it will be an exciting game and fingers crossed we can get off on a good foot. We’ve recently been slow starters but we’re looking to change that this season and get off to a flyer.

We already had Adam and Brett out, two quality players, they’ll be looking to get back soon. Unfortunately this season has started with Callum needing an operation and Brian O’Neil will have to rest for a while, we also had the big blow last Saturday with Youl picking up the injury, it’s a nightmare because he has been flying in pre-season and he was superb against United. Youl would have been a big player for us this season but I’m sure he is going to come back stronger.