WBA.CO.UK has signed up Chris Brunt as their new columnist for the 2009/10 season.

The Albion and Northern Ireland midfielder will be giving us the lowdown on the Baggies camp throughout the campaign in his monthly review 'Taking the Brunt'.

We kick off the series with a look back at a memorable August for the club.

WHAT a month!

It's been a hectic start to the season and there have been plenty of changes.

My room-mate Scotty Carson has been at the centre of one of them.

I was rooming with Scotty ahead of the Peterborough game when the gaffer told him he was going to be club captain.

We came down for dinner and the gaffer pulled him.

He came back after we had our pre-match meal and I joked with him that he'd been named captain - he nodded his head.

I thought he was being funny because Scotty's a bit daft!

And with the likes of Roko, who is an international skipper, being here as well I don't think Scotty expected it either.

It's gone pretty well for him so far - he's unbeaten as captain.

He's vocal on the pitch, in the dressing room and around the training ground.

He's an experienced Premier League player and hopefully he can use his Premier League quality and leadership skills to help get us back up.

We've also got the likes of Roko and Jonas as natural leaders out there.

Scotty takes his football very seriously and I think it's a good decision by the gaffer.

But Scotty's just as brainless when I room with him!

WHAT'S UP SKIP...Captain Carson looks on

We're all getting used to the new gaffer.

He puts his own spin on things when he feels he has to.

Overall he's been pretty quiet so far but he hasn't really had to say an awful lot in the changing room because things have been going well and we're putting points on the board.

Every management team is different.

They've all got their own way of doings things and it takes time for everyone to get adjusted.

I think the performances we had in pre-season were pretty slow as we got used to things.

But come the first game against Newcastle everything started to fall into place.

We played pretty well against Newcastle and, bar the performance of their goalkeeper in the second-half, we could have had three points.

It was nice to start off against one of the bigger teams because you have no settling-in period and you have to hit the ground running.

We've more or less got the same squad of players but we worked more on the defensive side of things in pre-season.

It's been a let-down of ours over the last couple of seasons - the amount of goals we've conceded.

Last time in the Championship we had three strikers getting 15 or more goals each and a couple of midfield players hitting double figures.

Conceding goals wasn't a massive issue in the Championship last time because we knew we had the firepower to go and score more goals than the opposition.

This time with Ish out and Roman just getting back to fitness it's going to be a tough ask for the likes of Woodsy to come in and score 20 goals and Coxy to make the step up and count on him to score 20 goals.

It's going to have to be much more of a team effort this season and we need to keep clean-sheets at the back.

We've also lost old-timers Robbo and Jonno, who were big names for West Brom.

Now they're gone I suppose I'm one of the more senior players in the squad.

I've been at West Brom a while now and hopefully I can help the young lads.

I've played in the Championship a fair bit and I know what is expected, and hopefully I can be a positive for the rest of the team.

We've got a pretty young squad at the moment.

But over the first few league games and Carling Cup games the lads that have come in have done well.

We've shown we've got the players to compete in this league.

Woodsy has been absolutely fantastic so far.

He was chucked in at the deep end.

He's shown in training what a physical presence he is for a 17-year-old.

He's streets ahead of his age group - he's like a man!

He showed that on the opening day of last season when he gave two Premier League centre-halves from last season a tough time.

He ran Coloccini all over the park.

He's a nice kid as well and has got his head down working hard.

I think he's got a bright future with West Brom.

WOOD ON TOP...Striker proving a handful

It's going to be a long season but we've got a decent squad and there are some good players out injured still to come back, like Mozza.

Last time in the Championship we made a relatively slow start.

At one stage last time it looked as if we were going to walk away with it and then we slipped into the play-off places and had to battle back.

It's a rollercoaster.

We've given ourselves a good base there and we want to keep this unbeaten run going as long as possible.

I think everyone is absolutely delighted with how things have gone, especially with the point at Sheffield United and being three minutes away from winning at Bramall Lane.

The last time we played them early on in a season we lost to them at Bramall Lane.

I think that shows a little bit of resilience from the lads as well because that's going to be a tough place for anyone to go this season.

Sheffield United have done really well over the last couple of seasons so I think that's a good benchmark for everyone.

The improved away form is down to a little tweak in the way we play.

Under the previous manager when we played at home we had the mentality that if the other team got three we'd score four.

I think we took that mentality into away games sometimes and that's not always possible.

We've shown away from home this season we're tighter as a unit.

We got pummelled for long periods at Nottingham Forest and still came away with three points, which is pleasing even though we didn't play very well at all.

Then we went to Peterborough and I think that's the best I've seen us play in a long time.

We could have been four or five up at half-time.

It shows we can mix it but have still got the attacking flair to score lots of goals.

We stopped overnight in a hotel for the Nottingham Forest game and we tried to get Reuben Reid to sing as part of his initiation as a new player - but he just had his dinner and disappeared.

So, I think that idea has gone out of the window.

To be fair, I think if I was in their situation I wouldn't want to sing.

Coxy is a little bit lairy so it wasn't a problem for him when he sang out in Slovenia - and it was pretty entertaining!