...On excitement on the verge of a new season 

I’m looking forward to this season. We're in a good place, the players have come back fit and focused and I’m happy with the preseason we’ve had. I think we’re ready to go at West Brom.

Naturally, everybody changes and I have too. You always want to do your absolute best for your team at this level; you have to be very demanding and keep pushing the players. We believe in pushing the players on to get the maximum from them.

...On the new players brought into the squad 

We were really pleased to do our main transfer business early. Sometimes it doesn’t work to plan but this summer we've been fortunate to get the guys in early and work with them from the start of pre-season.

It’s not a necessity to know the characters, but it is nice when you know the players and what they and bring to the team as we have with our three major summer signings.

They’ve settled in very well on and off the pitch – not forgetting Connor Mahoney, who has also fitted in well. We’re really pleased with how they’ve come in and we’re looking forward to the start of the season.

We’re a smaller, tighter squad then we were at this stage last season but I think the quality is higher and that could be a key difference.

...On what kicking on looks like

Kicking on looks like improvement to me, knowing myself that we’ve got better than the season before. Everyone will look at the league table but I’ll be assessing how the team is doing by performances and metrics.

I believe that this team can do special things, I’ve always believed that, but we’ll have to wait and see how things go.

...On the difficulty of picking his XI at the Hawthorns

You don’t want to disappoint people, and as the manager I know that when you leave players out in our squad you’re leaving out a good player.

As a manager you feel lucky to have good players at your disposal. Ultimately as the season progresses you’re going to need all your players.