BRAINTREE Town manager George Borg says he wants to work with a close-knit squad of players throughout the season.

The Iron are getting ready for the 2020-21 campaign, which gets underway at the start of next month.

Braintree have been busy reshaping their squad following the curtailed 2019-20 season, where they battled against relegation.

And boss Borg said he is looking forward to working with a set number of players, throughout the campaign.

Borg said: “With signing players, I like to have a squad of players that I start the season with and hopefully work with them, throughout that season.

“I’ve never been the kind of manager who brings players in and then has 30 or 40 players, in a season – that’s not me.

“I want 16 or 17 good players; we’ve got a good youth team coming up now and a couple of them can get experience sitting on the bench.

“But I’ll have a good squad of 16 or 17 players maybe 18, who knows?

“Then I can work with them throughout the season and I know that they’ll be good enough and I can work with them and improve them.

“That’s the way forward for us hopefully, this season.”

Braintree have been busy preparing for the forthcoming season with a series of friendlies and Borg says the warm-up games have been beneficial.

He added: “Pre-season friendlies are totally different from competitive games, that’s for sure. But the pre-season games are good because I can start working on the system that I want to play, tactics and see how they all shape up.

“Players know me; if you’re not good enough, then I’ll look you in the eye and say that and wish you well.”

Braintree’s scheduled behind closed doors friendly against King’s Lynn Town was cancelled last weekend.

It was called off due to a member of the King’s Lynn staff testing positive for Covid-19.

Braintree’s first competitive game of the season takes place on October 3 when they play in the FA Cup second qualifying round.

The Iron begin their National League South campaign on October 6 when they play host to Ebbsfleet, at Cressing Road.