i actually think heckingbottom is a pretty decent manager, and he himself is one good reason for optimism, even at this very early stage of pre-season.
aside from the obvious achievement of dragging us from mid-table obscurity when he took over after slav left to a penalty miss in the play-off semi and then on to what was ultimately a very comfortable promotion last season (including nightmare injuries around the autumn), his haul of nine points from ten games in 20/21, extrapolated over a full season, would have been close to keeping us in the premier league last season (34.2 points).
i think by kick off against palace we’ll have a much stronger squad than heckingbottom inherited from wilder, and more importantly a much, much better team than: Ramsdale, Ampadu, Basham, Bryan, Baldock, Lundstram, Norwood, Fleck, Stevens, Burke, Sharp (shudder!) who started against leicester.