Kyril Louis-Dreyfus has shared his relief after getting us out of League One and steadily improving the club to where we are now, despite last night.
KEEP IMPROVING
"We've seen that no matter how much you spend it is never easy to bring in ten or 12 new players, find the right blend, and immediately start winning so the fact that we got out of the division in my first [full] year and are competing now in our first year back in the Championship is very satisfying, but at the same time we will try to keep the same rate of improvement which has been exponential since I came in. We are always trying to get better and better.”
EARLY STAGE
"We are still very, very far off where I think we should be. We are still at a very early stage, in my opinion. There are so many areas where we are learning. There are 1,000 mistakes we've made since coming in, and I think it is very important to reflect on what you do and not think you have done everything [right].”
NO STEPS BACK
"When we came in, because we started off in a very difficult situation, I said to the people in the building that we needed to get better week by week. It's still the same kind of thing. I don't ever want us to go in the wrong direction. So far, I think people will agree that we have had linear improvement and I want to see that keep going and not see us starting to stagnate or go the other way. It's not easy, but that is the main point now."
PLEASED
"First and foremost, as a team that was promoted through the play-offs, statistically there is a very, very high chance of getting relegated again - I think something like 90 percent of the teams who get promoted through the play-offs from League One go straight back down. So ultimately the fact that we are competing towards the top end of the division is a very, very pleasing aspect which no-one really took for granted at the beginning of the season because we came into the division with 99 percent of our players having never played at this level.”
COMPETITIVE LEAGUE
"We've got more certainty than we had six months ago because we've seen everyone play in this division and how they are like. The division is competitive but every team has a chance, as we have seen every week - everyone can beat everyone. I think we have a good chance to try and be competitive this year. But the division is very tight, we all know that, and we know what a run of form - good or bad - can do to your position in the league.”
STEP BY STEP
"To me, it's more about wanting to see that continuing improvement more than anything else. We don't want to get promoted just by [harnessing] momentum, we want solid foundations that will ultimately get us up for a reason.
SURPASSING OPPOSITION
"We'd all love to finish in the top two this year and it's not unimaginable we can finish in one of those places, but at the same time it is about having a club where momentum or no momentum, you are working at a level where you should be competing. We've got good people in positions now, though, where we can look and say 'six months ago we would not have handled that situation that way and this time we have'. That's good, because that is the only way you are going to get promoted. We are catching up with the others, and then it is about surpassing others. I don't want to disrespect Championship clubs that have been here for a while because we are not going to surpass them overnight - if you could, it would be easy!"
