Manager Neil Harris has held his first real pre game press conference of the 2016/17 season and he’s relishing the League One year ahead.
Having missed out on promotion last season, it’s been a busy pre season build up for the club as we look to go one stage further this year, and Harris is confident we can do just that.
Speaking to the official site as he met the media, the gaffer explained.
‘We know it is going to be an extremely competitive fixture. Their players, old and new, will be eager to impress the manager and the fan base. As ever we are extremely diligent to the opposition but we are also focusing on ourselves and what we have tried to improve on over the summer. As a manager but also as a player pre-season seems to drag on forever, so we’re pleased that it is finally behind us now. I seem to spend half of June and July simply worrying about players being free from injury so to have got to this stage, with the first kick-off nearly upon us, is a tremendous feeling.’
Harris went on to add.
‘It has been a tough and gruelling few weeks for the players leading into Saturday’s game. We have played a lot of football and covered so much in training in terms of educating the players out on the pitches and in video sessions. The boys have attacked it with real endeavour and focus and the squad we have here is full of players who want to learn, improve and play to the best of their ability. Everyone is really looking forward to getting things under way on Saturday and excited about the challenges that lie ahead, but we’re focusing only on Oldham.’
As an injury update, Harris explained that with defender and new signing Shaun Hutchinson limping off in Tony Craig’s testimonial against Brentford, he would be assessed late, but Ben Thompson’s knock in the same game wasn’t a problem as he returned to training on Tuesday.
Joe Martin, making his first pre season appearance against Welling, is likely to miss out as he gets a few more training sessions under his belt and Shaun Cummings remains out of contention with his long term injury – Harris does however believe he’ll be back in training by the end of the month.
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