ROYAL Wootton Bassett boss Sam Collier is simply hoping his new-look squad can improve on last season’s 10th-place finish when they kick off the 2019-20 Hellenic League campaign away at Holmer Green on Saturday.

Bassett’s 2018-19 mid-table finish perfectly represented their inconsistencies that were, in the main, born out of unavailability and injuries, and Collier is hoping those issues can be avoided this time around.

Son of Chippenham Town manager, Mark, Sam Collier is therefore hopeful that his core group of 17 Bassett charges will be able to kick on this time around and secure a top-five finish.

He said: “The main aim this year is to finish higher than we did last year.

“We don’t know the strength of the league yet, we don’t know what it’s going to be like with a couple of new teams coming in, Westfields will probably be favourites for the title.

“If we can finish as high as possible, a top-five finish would obviously be fantastic, but we just want to improve on last year, so time will tell.”

Collier revealed he and assistant Matthew Bulman were successful in bringing in every target they had set their eyes on over the summer, including the likes of former Forest Green Rovers goalkeeper, Declan Lehmann and ex-Highworth Town forward, Callum Parsons.

As a result, the Bassett manager is optimistic of building on their top-10 finish from last year, and says his ‘close-knit’ group of players should be able to move the club forward if high standards are maintained throughout the season.

Collier said: “We’ve brought in all the targets we wanted to get, which is really good.

“We’ve brought in 11 new players, so we’ve got a squad of 17 that we’re working with.

“We think that’s the number we will probably need, due to the fact that someone will always be away, injured or suspended.

“But we’ve got a good squad and we’re really pleased.

“We had targets that we wanted to achieve and last year we finished 10th, which was fantastic and a good position for the club, but we do want to kick on this season.

“We targeted areas that we felt needed strengthening, we didn’t think we’d get 11 new players, but we have and they’ve all fitted in really well.

“A lot of them are from areas outside of Swindon, so they’ve had to really commit to getting to know all of the lads, and they have done.

“We’ve got a close-knit group of young lads mixed with some experience too.”