CEO and chairman Mark Ashton is pleased with what he feels is a decent and solid start to the Blues’ Premier League campaign following promotion and a summer in which the club appointed new manager Gary O’Neil and made 14 senior signings, spending around £190 million, a record for a side going into the top flight.

Town have taken six points from their first four Premier League matches, beating Sunderland and Crystal Palace, and sit in 10th in the table.

“I think it’s been a decent start,” Ashton told Sky Sports. “It’s been solid. Welcome back to the biggest and best league in the world.

“But I think we’re pleased with the points on the board, sitting mid-table and another tough trip to Everton at the weekend.”

Asked whether there’s more optimism that the club will stay up than was the case two years ago, Ashton said: “I think as a person, I’m always filled with optimism, whether I’m a realist at times is another question.

“The last time we were here, we’d been outside of the top flight for over 20 years, we’d only had 11 months in the Championship, having come from League One right the way through.

“And the club wasn’t ready as a club, the training ground hadn’t been built, recruitment wasn’t up to where we wanted it to be and we were always chasing time.

“I think this time, as a club, we’re more prepared, but it’s still the biggest and best league in the world and it’s going to be a real challenge ahead.”

Quizzed on whether manager Kieran McKenna’s decision to move on after winning his third promotion in four years was as eyebrow-raising for him as it was for those outside the club, Ashton said: “I think, ultimately, when your managers move on, it is always a shock.

“Was it a real surprise? Probably not, having worked with him by his side for four years. He’d done incredible things for the football club — four years, three promotions, a season in the Premier League, promotion back to the Premier League.

“And he just felt it was the right time to step away, take a breath and he will come again.

“He was absolutely first class for us. I can’t speak highly enough of him. I always said to him, I think he will go top, top and I genuinely believe that. But now, for us, we have to move on. And we have to move on quickly.”

Regarding the appointment of O’Neil as McKenna’s successor, he added: “When you’ve got a manager and a team and a club that has had real success over a four or five-year period, those successes bring challenges. So you know your staff, your players and your manager are going to be looked at by other clubs, so you have to keep an eye on the market in case something happens.

“Gary was someone we’d had an eye on, we’d done some homework and when Kieran made his decision to move, at a club that’s going into the Premier League, the floodgates open and you are inundated with people who you probably wouldn’t expect to actually be interested in the job.

“So we interviewed a number of people, but Gary’s qualities shone through and we were delighted to take him from Strasbourg.”

Reflecting on the summer transfer window, Ashton continued: “Again, time is a challenge. When you’re promoted automatically you have a small window to recruit players and we had to recruit the manager as well in that period. If you’re promoted via the play-offs, it’s an even shorter window.

“So you’re always chasing time. I think the World Cup expanded that window a little bit this summer, which did help.

“But we sat down, we’d been talking about a plan that if we weren’t promoted what recruitment would look like and a plan if we were promoted what recruitment would look like, and you almost have to run those two models together.

“And you know it’s going to be expensive, but you’re also running against Financial Fair Play and SCR [Squad Cost Ratio] and you’re running that complicated model as well.

“You’re transitioning from a P&S model [Profitability and Sustainability] in the Championship to a different Financial Fair Play model in the Premier League. It’s multi-layered and it’s not easy. But I think we had a strong window, let’s say.”

Town’s squad saw more turnover in the summer than was the case two years ago and at Coventry City, who won the Championship title last season.

Ashton was asked how much churn in a squad is too much: “It’s a really good question. I would have thought that the last time we were promoted, we were probably around Coventry’s type of numbers and remember, we had a squad that had gone through League One, Championship, straight into the Premier League very quickly and we had quite a large number of players who’d gone all the way through with us.

“And there’s a tendency that you want to give those players their opportunity because they’ve deserved it.

“I think this time our approach was slightly different. We were going to look at more international markets, more global recruitment. I think we’ve definitely done that.

“It’s difficult because I think that when we came up last time, people would have said, ‘did you come up too early, too soon?’. I don’t think that you can ever do it too soon. You take your opportunity when it comes.

“I think this time we’ve looked at it differently. We’ve looked at the physicality of players, probably more experienced players, more from a global market this time and the churn has been high. But I think this time around, he says, hopefully we’ll be more competitive.”

Photo: TWTD