United manager Greg Abbott spoke more today about the visit of League Two champions Brentford to Brunton Park for the opening game of the season on Saturday 8 August.

He said: "Teams who come up are on a real high, so in many ways they are a more difficult prospect than playing teams who have just come down or who were in the division anyway.

"Brentford will be buzzing, but both of the opening games are tough. Millwall away is never easy, but we can't start getting frightened about fixtures. What we have to focus on is the fact that we will have a squad that is good enough to compete. We have some good players here and, with the quality of the new players that we intend to add to that, we will not be an easy team to beat."

In terms of what he wants from next season, he said: "I would say that we need to be better at home, and that's definitely as far as results go.

"We can start that process with the game against Brentford. They will come here full of optimism and hope, but we will have a very positive attitude ourselves, and it should be a good game.

"For ourselves, we need to make sure that we improve on what we have done and get ourselves involved in the shake up. We have the players here who can do that for us, and we have the determination here to do it, but there will be at least 18 clubs in the division who will feel that they can make it into the play-off places. That's the quality that there is in League One this time round. We have to match that, and I'm sure we will, and then we can really start talking about where we want this club to go."

Casting an eye over the fixture list further into the campaign, he told us: "There's a run in late September and early October that really does stand out. During that period we have Southampton and Norwich at home and we play Leeds away, and they are all massive games.

"You are talking about teams that were in the Premiership and Championship not so long ago, so that's a fantastic little set of fixtures that we can all look forward to."