"NOT a bad start considering we haven't put our best team out yet!"

The jubilant supporter leaving the Reebok on Tuesday night was not suggesting Wanderers could have done any better than maximum points from their two games if one or all of their injured trio - Gareth Farrelly, Colin Hendry and Djibril Diawara - had been available.

Mike Whitlow has had two outstanding displays and could anyone really have eclipsed Kevin Nolan's performances? Yet the word is that neither would have played at Leicester if Hendry and Farrelly - two of last season's most reliable performers - had not been ruled out by knee and thigh problems respectively. Indeed, Whitlow might still have had to settle for a place on the subs' bench if what we were hearing was correct and Diawara was set for his Premiership debut at centre-back until he was injured in training! But it begs the question: what happens when everybody is fit? What if Sam Allardyce finally manages to secure the new signings he has been so dilligently pursuing these past weeks?

He will pick his strongest team, of course, and those who are not included are going to have to grin, bear it and bide their time until their chance comes along.

For now, however, the Wanderers' boss is tempted to go along with the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" theory.

Of his summer signings, only Nicky Southall and Henrik Pedersen have been given a taste of the action - both as last substitutes when the manager in the stand and his coach, Phil Brown, on the touchline (now in constant touch by walkie-talkie) decided it was time for fresh legs. Diawara and Akinori Nishizawa have had to wait - the latter's frustrations being shared by the ever-present Japanese media men who just won't go away for fear of missing their man's Premiership debut.

How ironic, though, that it is last season's players - the ones the critics said could never cut it in the top flight - who have taken the Premiership by storm, justifying the manager's belief that familiarity can be a major plus when a team has to adjust to a new challenge in a higher league.

"The players are comfortable with the system and comfortable with each other," he has explained. "They are determined to do well, are tactically right and their fitness is good.

"The team has been together so long they know each other very well and how each other plays.

"That could be disrupted by new players and a lack of understanding between them and the old ones.

"Hopefully the players who came to watch on Saturday got an understanding of how we play. They can learn from what they saw and what's expected of them. I hope it was a very good coaching lesson for them."

They might not relish having their particular place in the pecking order coming under threat but players always want to see their club investing in new talent. The stronger the squad, the greater the chance of success.

Gudni Bergsson has the confidence - and he certainly still has the speed and the ability judging by his two performances to date - to meet any challenge head on. Nevertheless, it's the more the merrier as far as the captain is concerned.

"We've already got some good players at this club," he points out, "but we still want to strengthen the squad and we've got to get the others fit and well. We need competition for places. It's a squad game and I'm sure everybody will be involved at some stage."

So far so good but nobody is getting too excited after just two games.

"Confidence is high," Bergsson confirmed , "but we're not getting carried away."