JAMIE Day admits that losing the three planned home games from Braintree Town’s pre-season schedule has affected his preparations for the Vanarama National League campaign.

However, the Iron manager is still pleased with how his team has shaped up in the fixtures they have played and is confident they are where they need to be.

A home game against League Two side Cambridge United was supposed to be the final summer friendly for Day’s team on Saturday, but just like the other two fixtures against Football League opponents – Southend United and Gillingham – it has had to be cancelled.

The Avanti Stadium pitch has not recovered sufficiently from drainage improvement work over the summer for the games to be played and Day has been looking for a fixture to replace the latest call-off.

He said: “We’re disappointed we haven’t been able to play those three games, because we haven’t faced higher-placed teams in our pre-season.

“In the longer term it’s good for the pitch to have had the work done, but at the moment, we are disappointed.

“You want to get exposed by the better teams to work out the areas that you need to work on.

“We have had some good games in pre-season, but it’s when you come up against the better teams that you really see where you are struggling and there is the revenue that comes in as well.

"hose three games could have got some good sums of money in for the club so that’s also disappointing.

“We’ve been trying to arrange another game but it’s been a bit of a struggle as most other clubs have their fixtures in place and it’s the last week before the start of the season."

Braintree have managed to replace the game against Cambridge with a trip to Bishop's Stortford on Saturday and it will follow a 3-1 win against another Vanarama National League South side in midweek.

Goals from Simeon Akinola and Michael Cheek and a Lee Barnard penalty sealed the win for the Iron, but Day felt it was important to get one more game in before the start of the National League season on August 6.

He added: “I wanted to get a game in as it’s important that we don’t head into the North Ferriby game not having played for two weeks.”

Despite the setbacks of losing the home games, though, Day is still pleased with his team’s progress.

“We have done OK.,” he said.

“We tweaked the system last weekend and went with a 3-5-2 formation to see how it worked if we need a plan B but Lowestoft gave us a good game and apart from the goal that we gave away, I felt we played some good stuff.

"I’ve been fairly pleased with the pre-season other than the three sloppy goals we let in against Bury, however, we haven’t played anyone full-time.”