The Tanner report

Although I still have reservations whether Kit Symons is the best-qualified candidate to achieve promotion he has certainly turned things round and will surely go from temporary to permanent manager. The two questions are the length of his contract and the necessity of a football director.

Not only has he restored confidence and happiness after Magath, he has identified his best side and introduced the youngsters astutely. We still need far more goals from McCormack and Bryan Ruiz to impose himself on a game. Although we beat Charlton 3-0 there were long periods when we were not in control and our play was sloppy.

Player and fan clearly feel we have awoken from a bad nightmare. I do not wish to be negative when everything is so positive but I do wonder, given how much Kit has extracted from the team, how on earth Magath managed to stay in charge so long. A good example is Dan Burn. For some reason Magath thought him a right back and after he played poorly there against Stoke was dropped. He is now a commanding defender and his partnership with Bodurov has transformed our defence from of the leakiest to one of the meanest in the division.

We are out of the relegation zone after 3 games in 6 days so it’s onwards and upwards now.