When he took over as manager late in 2003, Alan inherited a squad that had undergone a period of reconstruction following relegation from the Premiership.
Further transfer dealings since his arrival mean that with the squad's return for pre-season training, he can now improve on the spirit that saw the team go so close to promotion.
"We're coming into the first pre-season with me as manager, and these players have had time to bed in with me.
"Hayden Mullins, Nigel Reo-Coker, Nowland, McAnuff, Zamora and Harewood, all those new lads who were brought in are all now comfortable in the shirt and we can now install a spirit here that perhaps was difficult to gel when they were all coming in at different times and when we had not had a pre-season. On that side of it, obviously that is a real bonus for us."
The manager is also pleased to be working with a squad that, despite some departures over the summer, contains the nucleus of the one that did so well towards the end of last season. There is a great deal of confidence that the side will once again be in the shake-up for promotion.
"The players that I inherited all know me much better now and I like to think they trust me and respect me and we can go into the new season without the mass turnaround that occurred last year.
"There is a levelling off now of activity, transfer-wise, and manager-wise hopefully! We've got a nice settled team, and people will look at us as one of the favourites, and rightly so."
The general consensus is that this year's revamped Coca-Cola Championship will be a tough one, with the sides relegated from the Premiership providing a tough prospect for the likes of West Ham, Sunderland, Ipswich & Sheffield United. The manager is not thinking about the rest too much, and is confident that he has the set-up required to get the club promoted this year.
"We will concentrate on ourselves, we know we've got good players here. It's about 46 games, and with 28 wins you need to win the league - that's what we have to focus on as we kick off.
"The start of this campaign will be important for us because of the play-off defeat and our fans will want to see that we respond in the right manner to that."