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» CHELTENHAM Town boss Michael Duff feels he is on course to get his squad fit and fresh for the opening League Two game of the season at Leyton Orient on August 3.

Duff felt there were many positives to come out of Saturday’s 2-1 home defeat by Premier League side Leicester City - especially the defensive work and fitness of his players.

“We have worked on shape for the last three weeks and I think you can see the organisation and how difficult we were to break down,” he said.

“We are disappointed because the two we conceded are actually poor goals.

“That’s something we do need to get out of our game because we’ve conceded six goals in pre-season and I don’t think anyone has scored a good goal yet, as regards to us saying it was a good bit of play.

“But the fitness levels were good - they brought on another team at half-time and it’s hard enough playing Leicester, but when they are bringing on £40million players fresh and it’s our lads’ first 90 minutes.

“The pleasing thing is things we’ve been working on came out. We can be be better with the ball, but we’ve not done any work with the ball, so to speak.

“That’ll be the next couple of weeks now, but hopefully we’ve built a framework and a way of playing that gets us the ball and we’ll look to play from there. I am really pleased.

“If you were the finished article now you’d be worried. But overall, if we’d won 1-0 I’d have been saying the same thing, exactly the game. The defensive work and fitness looked good.

“They key is fit and fresh, not fatigued mentally or physically going into the season.

“You can be fit, but flagging a little bit. We want to be fit, fresh and hungry, ready to go.”

Duff said the emphasis of pre-season training will now change.

He said: “We had three weeks of fitness and framework and we’ll now look to improve with the ball, little ways of playing, rotations and movements/patterns that we work on.

“It is difficult and I might be speaking to you after the first game and saying the lads look knackered, or way off it, but we think we are in a good place.”

Duff still wants to add to his squad, with 19 players under contract, while Reuben Reid, Chris Hussey and Conor Thomas all missed the Leicester game, and Josh Debayo came off at half-time.

But he is keen to remain patient in the hunt for new recruits.

“It’s constantly evolving,” he said. “Every day I am getting 40 or 50 players. Micky (Moore, head of recruitment) is the same.

“We have identified people, but whether they walk in the door or not...we went for one, didn’t get it and then Rohan Ince comes up, so that’s an example of what happens.

“It depends who is available and I won’t bring players in for the sake of bringing them in, or we’d end up with 29 players.

“Whoever walks in the door, we have to try and make sure they are the right ones.

“When the season starts, people pop up and Luke Varney is an example of that.

“He didn’t have a club this time last year, or when the window shut.

“It’s getting the balance of the right ones in.

“If we have to wait we wait, but when they are available getting them in.”