Exeter City midfielder Nicky Law says the squad are keen to impress new manager Matt Taylor and his coaches ahead of the 2018/19 season.
City have four more matches to play in their pre-season schedule, the first of which comes this evening as the Grecians travel to Bath City.
Nicky says although one of the main focuses of pre-season is getting back to match fitness, he and the players will be hoping to make the most of the opportunity to seal a place in the starting line-up on August 4 against Carlisle United in the first game of the new season.
He said: “All the games are an opportunity to impress the manager and the staff. There are probably a few tweaks that he wants to make that the old manager didn’t, so it’s not just the new boys that are learning.”
The 30-year-old arrived at the club a couple of weeks ago and says he and the rest of the new arrivals (Aaron Martin, Jonathan Forte and Tristan Abrahams) have had a warm welcome from the rest of the City squad.
He continued: “They are a really nice group of lads. They’ve made myself and the other three new boys feel really welcome. It’s been a tough couple of weeks training and it was good to play our first game last Thursday (a victory of Truro City) and we had a couple of days away as a bit of a bonding thing for the new lads to get to know the boys a bit better. Overall, it’s been a good couple of weeks.”
With the match to come at Bath this evening, Nicky revealed that the squad are looking to use the pre-season games to work on fitness as well as tactics to make sure they are ready when the season begins.
He continued: “We are trying to take what we have been working on with the manager and the staff in the training week and put that into practice in the games.
“The biggest thing is fitness, particularly in these early matches, and you want to win the games as well. To score six and not concede any (against Truro City) was positive but I think the main thing, more so for the new boys, is getting used to the style of play and things that the manager wants and from now and the next two or three friendly games we’ve got, we will be looking to implement the things that we have been working on.”
Nicky also says he has enjoyed working under Matt Taylor in training so far in pre-season with the manager ensuring that his messages are getting across clearly to the squad.
He said: “He (Matt) is a young coach in his first job as a manager. The lads have taken well to his ideas, obviously, a lot of the lads know him from being here before in terms of how he works and the things that he wants.
“For us new boys we’ve all enjoyed it, everything has been positive, and he has taken a lot of training himself. He has got his message across well, so it will be up to us now, as players, to replicate that on the pitch.”