He's been back a little over a month.
When he re-signed, we were 16th and only 1 point clear of relegation.
Fast forward to today and we're 15th, 10 points clear of relegation and a win by 2 clear goals over the weekend will guarantee us moving up to at least 13th. Can any of us honestly say we'd have seen us this position a month ago?
He's done a hell of a job in a very short period of time. We'll inevitably have another rough patch this season, but he's got us moving in the right direction.
I reckon having Baines and Coleman immediately involved means the legacy of his first spell is still very much alive. Some of the attitude, temperament, and preparation for training and for matches will be familiar. So it's not so much a blank canvas he's starting with, but to mix metaphors very much, a previously worn and broken in pair of trabs he's come back to. Confidence and faith and trust and a big breath of fresh air after so much of the gloom and misery.
As a club we were beaten down, by the points deductions, by the scraping survival, by the horrendous game set ups, by a manager that only had a prehistoric method of trying for games, by giving up when a goal was conceded.
We've had a lift, there's bumps in the road to come, but we play in front of 52k next season and it's looking like in the PL. We'll see players come and go this summer and approach our new future with some optimism.