BANGOR City boss Kevin Nicholson is raring to go ahead of their Welsh Premier League opener against champions The New Saints on Friday (7.45pm).

The rookie boss will be looking to make an early statement of intent against the full-timers, who recently lost manager Craig Harrison after the trophy laden figure departed for Hartlepool United.

A big crowd is expected at the Bangor University Stadium as City look to lay the foundations ahead of a possible top flight title challenge this term.

Speaking to WPL online, Nicholson said: “We’re just really looking forward to getting going, regardless of who we face first, and we’re going to be doing everything we can to make sure that the club has a positive start to the season.

“The league is going to be extremely competitive, every game will be so difficult, so we’ve got to first of all make sure that we improve upon last year – there were 33 points between us and TNS last year, and we will be wanting to close that gap as much as possible, but in order to do that we need to pick up three points on a consistent basis.

“We understand that there will be a number of teams wanting to challenge, but a club the size of Bangor City has certain expectations, we’ll be doing our absolute best to match those and see where that takes us.”

Nicholson has moved to offset the loss of star midfielder Henry Jones by bringing in a host of highly-touted signings, which include the acquisition of club record signing Brayden Shaw from Accrington Stanley.

“If you’re going to achieve anything then you have to believe that you can do it, and there is a lot of belief in the squad that we can have a very good season, but it will be about taking things game by game,” he added.

“We need a good start, like every team will, and then it’ll be about consistency and finding ways to win against very tough teams.”