NEW Barnoldswick Town manager Matt Barnes is content with how the club's pre-season has gone so far and he was enthusiastic about the raft of new signings that have arrived this summer.

The North West Counties Premier Division side have raided Barnes' old club Maine Road for three players and they have also secured the exciting signing of Nathan Emery, who has come all the way from Australia.

Barnes enthused: "We've signed Ryan Livesey from Maine Road and for me, now that Greg Hall has left 1874 Northwich, Ryan is the best goalkeeper in the league. We've signed James Ormerod and Jack Coop from there too.

"Nathan is a left-back and he's been playing second tier Australian football, so only a level below the A-League. He's come in and done really well."

The club have lost last season's star performer Zack Dale to Ashton United but Barnes was upbeat, saying: "We've retained about 90 per cent of the lads and strengthened overall.

"We've got a couple of lads on trial from Buxton this week too so I would say we're in good shape. From what I've seen in pre-season I'm confident of beating anybody."

The new manager admitted it was a tough start to the season for Barnoldswick though. They travel to Charnock Richard on the opening day, and four of their first five matches are away from home.

Barnes said: "Charnock is not the ideal place to go for your first game and ideally you would like to have more home games earlier on.

"But you have to play everybody at some stage and my team should be strong enough, mentally and physically, that it shouldn't make a difference. We're going to try our best to get three points wherever we play, home or away."

The manager expressed confidence in his side, but he admitted that sloppy play in their pre-season friendlies needs to be ironed out.

He said: "The goals that we have conceded have been from mistakes. We're going to make them, we're semi-pro footballers for a reason, but they need to be limited from now on.

"We've let in more than I'd like but we had three games close together to test their mentality and attitudes, and they came through it massively.

"We need to focus on August 4 now, we know how we'll have to set up against Charnock and we'll put that into practice in the remaining pre-season games."