TRANMERE Rovers manager Nigel Adkins has given his first interview ahead of the new campaign.

The Rovers squad are into their second week of pre-season training and Adkins is happy with what he is seeing from his new-look group.

Talking to Tranmere Rovers' official YouTube channel, Adkins said: “First of all, I’m really pleased. It’s great to be back again.

“Pre-season is always a special time - the camaraderie and bonding of everybody and that’s really been evident for everybody to go and see.

“The players have come back in good nick, they’ve looked after themselves, they’ve had an off-season programme.

“Hodgey (Andy Hodgen, Head of Medicine & Sports Science) has done a great role in making sure everyone has an off-season programme, the players have adhered to that.

“As you can see, when they’ve come back, we do a load of different types of fitness testing so from my point of view, really pleased.”

“Obviously then when we’ve had Jordan Turnbull and Brad Walker who had two operations before the end of the season to make sure that they were ready for pre-season and they’ve come back bang on, so well done to the medical side as well as making sure that through the summer months that the guys have been in doing their work.”

The manager also spoke about how his new signings are settling in, potential future transfer activity this summer, and targets for the season ahead.

He said: "Come the end of the season the team had really settled down and we had a way of playing and we managed to maintain the core group of players that played so well.

"There is a spirit and an understanding already and we can build on that by bringing in players.

"We have brought development players in from non league like Sol Solomon and Josh Williams and they have to get used to going from non-league footballers when they'll train a couple of times a week to training every day and that's tough.

"Both of them have applied themselves extremely well and I've been very impressed - they've got a long way to go but it's a development programme.

"All the lads who have come in have done really well - they want to learn and do well and in Cameron Norman and Josh Davidson I've been saying 'wow' - I want us to be a big side and an athletic side. 

"The flip side of that is we've got a smaller player in Sam Finley but he has experience and can help people.

"We will bring in a few more players but at the moment I'm really pleased we've the players we've got."

As for targets, Adkins is bullish about Rovers' prospects and has made it clear to the players what he expects from this Tranmere side.

He added: "It's clear for me and I've said it to the players since day one - the target is promotion. The aim is to win the next game and we're going to play 60 games this season and the aim is to win every game you play for Tranmere Rovers. 

"The ambition is to get promoted - we're going to win some and we're going to lose some but it's about how you get over that and focus on the next performance.

"It's too easy in this world to give up - you've got to pick yourself up and go again and that's what we've got to do over the course of these 60 games. It will be a tough season but it's about ambition, aim and focus and we'll see where we get to."