It still feels like we’re playing catch-up when it comes to recruitment. McKenna has hinted at this himself, especially around overseas markets. We’ve had two summers in a row where the squad has basically been rebuilt from the ground up. That’s never easy, and it’s bound to make performances look a bit disjointed, particularly at the start of a season.
Other clubs chop and change plenty but seem to knit things together more quickly. The difference, I think, is that we’re aiming for something a bit higher. If your only goal is to be solid, hard to beat, and nick results off set-pieces, a low block, or counter-attacks, you can get that sorted pretty quickly. What McKenna is trying to build takes longer — the patterns of play, the freedom, the individual responsibility. We saw it in League One: it took him a season and a half, and three transfer windows, before we got to the point where we could steamroller teams.
The parachute payments should help us accelerate the process this time around, but it’s still going to be a gradual climb. I also think the constant rotation of players is deliberate — part of the bigger picture. The idea seems to be that eventually the whole squad can slot in and out, with the same intensity, no matter how busy the schedule gets.
Recruitment is an interesting one. I do wonder if some of it comes from direct impressions. Take Carlos Corberán’s West Brom back five and Casey McAteer. That promotion season game away at West Brom — we couldn’t get near them. They were rock solid defensively. You could argue we’ve basically bought that defence after seeing it up close. Same with McAteer — he had a couple of good games against us and caused problems. Maybe those performances stuck in McKenna’s mind.
That feels slightly different to the signings of players like Azor Matusiwa and Jens Cajuste, which look more data-driven and scouting-led. Could be nonsense on my part, but it does feel like a mix of approaches.
The bigger question for me is how we deal with the way most teams will play against us this season. The Championship feels like it’s shifted. The high press we saw a lot of in our promotion year isn’t so common now. Back then, teams came at us, we played through them, and we countered quickly with loads of space to work in. This season, we’re the big scalp, the team with the squad “on paper,” and sides are adjusting.
We’ve already seen it — Derby, Preston, Blackburn, Portsmouth, Bristol City have all sat in and tried to frustrate. Only Sheffield United, Southampton, and to an extent Birmingham have actually looked to dominate us. That’s the challenge this season: breaking down the low block and finding ways to win against teams who are happy to camp deep and hit on the break. |  |
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