Simon Weaver believes his side were unlucky to come away from this afternoon’s friendly against Lincoln with a 3-1 defeat.
The defeat is our first of pre-season but the Town boss believes his side are making progress ahead of the new campaign.
He said: “For long periods of the game today I thought we were excellent. We shifted the ball about well, kept possession and managed to cause problems in our attacking play.
“There was a lot of good individual performances out there. The players stepped up their minutes played and with a lot of changes on 70 minutes that is always going to disrupt the flow especially in pre-season.
“At the start of the second half there was a little bit of a sucker punch with the penalty and the goal quickly after that.
“Ordinarily you would be a little bit disappointed with that but it is still only pre-season, we are building up to that first game. Lincoln are a really good League One team and against sides of that quality you have to stay switched on.
“Overall I think we’re right on course, it’s been another good workout and hopefully we can build on the positives on Saturday.”
With several of the club’s new signings featuring for 70 minutes, the 45-year-old believes their integrating within the group well.
“I think you can see players are starting to settle in here at the club. Coming into a new environment they have to learn their role within the squad and familiarise themselves with their team mates.
“From what we saw today, you can see that the understanding is growing which is really pleasing. There was a lot of energy within the performance too and that is encouraging at this stage of the season.”
As the pre-season action continues this Saturday against South Shields, Weaver revealed the whole squad will be given the opportunity to impress
“We want to give everyone a fair chance to impress and we are hoping that by the close of play on Saturday, everyone has reached a similar landmark of minutes going into the Gateshead match.”