MARK Yates has spoken to the official website and given us his thoughts on the upcoming pre-season schedule, having that much-needed continuity in his squad and much more.

Players report back for pre-season training in just six days - and the Harriers' Chief admitted he's expecting to hit the ground running in terms of preparation for the new season.

He said: "The first couple of games are going to be very tough and very competitive.

"The lads will play 45 minutes in each game as an introduction and it won't be easy and certainly won't be after that - we want to make them as useful and completive as possible and we're facing side who will test us.

"We'll mix it about as we always do, pre-season is about building a base to work on and concentrating on fitness."

Harriers currently have a squad of 16 - with all but three of those also being members of last season's team.

That's vital, according to Yates, who added: "Continuity is a very good thing in football and we'd like to think that, on our day, we were as good as anything else in the Conference last season.

"With keeping the majority of the squad together and bringing in three what I would call quality signings can only stand us in good stead."

He continued:

"Paul Bignot is a player we know a lot about and I'm delighted he's going to be with us for this season, Justin Richards as I've said is a natural goal scorer at this level and someone who will be a threat for us.

"Andy Ferrell will bring a lot to midfield that already has a lot of quality. At a level where you just don't find Roy Keane's and Mike Marsh's with their leadership and passing abilities just going free, we've got three young players in Andy, Russ and Trigger who can get stuck in superbly and also play well on the ball.

"We've seen bits of that and hopefully we'll see even more next season, we're delighted with what we've got."

The Blue Square Premier have announced via their website that next season's fixtures are due to be released next Tuesday.

Whilst not sounding too thrilled at the huge amount of long-distance journeys down south that will await the boys next season, the boss remained confident that all will be done in terms of gearing up for the all-important day on August 11.

"You look at the nature of the league next season and there are a lot of teams down south, the coach will be getting on the M40 a lot rather than the M6!" continued Yates.

"We don't mind where we start or who we start against, we're looking forward to a decent pre-season at the moment and we'll be working towards getting focussed and ready for that first game of the season."

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