Town boss Paul Jewell says his young side faces a big challenge with Blackburn Rovers still having plenty of names familiar from their time in the Premier League. However, he believes he has good and enthusiastic players in his squad.
Jewell said: "Just look at their team that’s played in pre-season — Paul Robinson, Gaël Givet, Scott Dann, Danny Murphy, if he plays, Dickson Etuhu, Nuno Gomes, they bought Leon Best for £3 million and he’s injured.
"They’ve got Colin Kazim-Richards, they’ve got Morten Gamst Pedersen if he plays, David Dunn’s there. There are a plethora of names, but they’ll start with 11 the same as us.
"They’ve got a lot of experience, a lot of quality players, but we’ve got a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of good players ourselves. If we compete and do what we’re good at and give it our best shot, you never know.”
The Town boss is confident that his team will give their all: "I think the young players we’ve got at the moment will do as I ask them.
"They’re keen, they’re enthusiastic, they’re enjoying their football at the moment. It’s been a bit of a struggle in pre-season and everybody - players, management, supporters, the owner - knows we need to improve the squad. The lads need help, we are at least three players short.
"But until we get those three players, the lads that we’ve got will give us everything they’ve got and as a manager I’m comfortable with that.”
Reflecting on the season ahead, the Liverpudlian says he’s looking forward to it, despite knowing he still needs to add to his squad: "We’re always positive going into games, always looking to win games. You know it’s going to be a tough league, 46 games, a long old slog.
"But we’re full of enthusiasm, we’re full of optimism. We know we need to improve the squad, that’s going to be an ongoing thing. We’ve probably got the smallest squad in the division, if I’m being honest.
"However, we’ve got a really honest squad, a really enthusiastic squad and as a manager you can’t ask for more than that.”
He admits that he still gets that first-day-of-the-season frisson of excitement: "I was just saying to the staff, you don’t normally have a game before the first league match of the season and it builds up on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but because we’ve already had a game this week it’s been a strange build-up.
"But you get that buzz, that excitement, the butterflies that I got when I first started playing 25 years ago or whatever it was. It never leaves you.”