Notts County have emerged as the bookmakers' second favourite for promotion after falling short in the play-off's last campaign. Suffering late heartache against eventual winners Grimsby Town, manager Luke Williams will hope to guide his side into the EFL after Ian Burchnall's departure.
Recording victories against Basford United, Leicester City and Alfreton Town thus far, the Magpies still have tough tests to come before the start of the new National League season, with all of Cambridge United, Boston United and Nottingham Forest still to come.
But with many sites seeing County as a potential early frontrunner, Williams' side are as short as 7/1 and 13/2 in some places, with only Wrexham ahead of them in terms of odds at present. With work still yet to be done, six new faces have arrived at Meadow Lane so far, with more names still rumoured to be of interest for the club too.
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Burchnall's departure, of course, came as a shock to most, and with last season's top scorer Kyle Wootton also now away on pastures new, penning a deal with Stockport County, much will be made of how the team is galvanised after last season's disappointment. Especially Williams' new additions.
"It's not just about numbers," began Williams earlier this month. "It's also about people that can stand up to the challenges across a long season. These guys have proved that they can do that and we've got lots of feedback on them, we've spoke to people about these guys and their character. When you then meet them, you have no doubt."
Goals from Cal Roberts and Ed Francis secured the most recent victory at Alfreton, with Williams opting to switch round personnel late on, in an obvious attempt to find the best system ahead of the new campaign. Back from illness, Macaulay Langstaff came close to opening the scoring, with the 25-year-old hoping to build on his superb 30 goals that helped lift Gateshead into the National League.
With big demands expected too, Williams, who at 41 is one of the younger managers in the league, has driven home the emphasis of working hard in the build-up, in order to maximise just how much starting strongly means to both him and his current coaching staff at the club.
"We've thought a lot about the logistics as to when and where we train because we need to train twice a day throughout pre-season at least," he continued. "There is a lot of planning around meal timings, meeting times, then the content around those things, we have to maximise the time that we have efficiently. All of that then takes careful planning.
"We have really good staff and we are fortunate that we have staff here with experience, they know what they are talking about and they are not going to allow me and Rob too ruin riot, we don't want to do that and we want to work within the remits of what's safe for the players and we don't injured players of people that burnout by the time the league games start.
"At the same time we don't want to waste a moment and we want to use the time wisely, we believe in hard work and hard work isn't always physical, hard work is often going through stuff on the training pitch that might not be physically challenging but you have to be present and you have to concentrate."
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