Building momentum will be the first target for Braintree Town’s players as they start the new Vanarama National League season at North Ferriby on Saturday.

Manager Jamie Day knows his team face a testing opening few weeks, but as a group that have only just been brought together, he knows it is important for them to make a solid start to get a run going.

“It is all about momentum for us in the early days,” he said.

“If we can get on a bit of a run, then that will breed confidence and we can build on that.

“I always take things month by month and we’ll be setting the boys a points target.

“If we make that then great, but if we don’t hit it, we won’t be panicking and we’ll look to make it up as the season goes on, but it’s not an easy start for us.

“It’s a tough trip to North Ferriby on Saturday with an early start to face a newly-promoted team, and then we have Eastleigh at home on Tuesday, who have been spending money and will be in the mix at the top this season.

“Then it’s a full-time team in Macclesfield (at home) the following Saturday and Maidstone, who will be confident after coming up last season. So it’s a tough run for us, but one we’re looking forward to after finishing pre-season positively.

“We were pleased with the Concord and Bishop’s Stortford games last week as we worked hard and played some good stuff.

“We’ve slowly built up our pre-season and our shape was good in those games.

“We were disappointed to concede from a free-kick in the Concord game but I felt we controlled both games and we have to now take that into the first game of the season on Saturday.

“The boys have done everything that we’ve asked of them and we are now preparing for North Ferriby.”