Certain players such as Les Ferdinand and Fernando Hierro have had little chance to play in pre-season and the Wanderers boss is hopeful that all things will gel together during the Reebok opener at the weekend after seeing his summer preparations disrupted somewhat.
"We go into the game with our fingers crossed slightly by the fact that we have not completed everybody's fitness work, we've not integrated everybody tactically, physically or mentally," confirmed Big Sam to the Official Site.
"So it's a bit like throwing it all together and hoping that it works on the day, which has been exactly like the last two seasons. The time it's taken to get the players in means that we haven't got the time to do the work that we've needed to do. That leaves us in a dangerous position for the first one to five or one to ten games. Hopefully the talent and the fitness of the players can overcome it and that we have a little bit of luck and the experience can get us through it until we get to the top of our game. We can't be on the top of our game on Saturday."