Collins confident Bantams can make strong start

I CAN feel the anticipation as we get closer. You start to realise how fast pre-season’s gone.

It feels like only yesterday we were in the off-season still trying to put bits and pieces together. Before you know it, we’re right on the eve of the first game at Shrewsbury.

It has been a bit of a whirlwind and it’s not always easy in such a short period to get across the messages you’re looking for from the team.

But we feel we’re slowly getting there and will certainly be competitive.

The main thing I stress from day one is that it takes time to be an expansive team suddenly playing a real brand of football.

We wanted to focus on organisation first and foremost to give us that base to build on.

The players are understanding what we want out of possession and off the back of that, it will give us a really good base on which to build and start playing some of the football we believe they are capable of.

Everything is new and the players have been brilliant with us. How they’ve applied themselves has been first class.

When you play the likes of Sheffield United or Sheffield Wednesday in pre-season, one thing you do notice is the difference in the number of staff.

We’re a very close-knit coaching team. There aren’t many of us but we all make sure we share the load and go above and beyond to leave no stone unturned in every detail.

We don’t have the luxury of six or seven analysts like some other clubs, even in League One they might have two or three, so we’re making the best with what we’ve got.

There are no complaints and that’s what we’ve stressed from day one.

I know everything this club has, having been here last season. That’s a big advantage because it was never a case of us coming in and wanting this and that.

We knew exactly what we had to work with and we believe we can be successful with what we have here.

So we have absolutely no excuses and it’s up to us to make sure we prepare a team ready for the season and we feel we’re doing that.

Everybody is well aware of social media and what people are saying about the expectations.

For me, and this may sound really clichéd, but I don’t look beyond the short term. I want to get off to a good start to the season.

The important thing for me is providing a team from the off that is very organised and gives us a chance to win games.

I’m a big believer that you have to have the chance to win games rather than setting your team up where you’re almost at the mercy of losing games. I feel like we’ve done that.

We’ll just assess it as we go along. There’s no point in getting carried away and saying we’re going to do this or that.

Every team in every division will be talking about what they are going to do this season, how they are going to get promoted or make the play-offs.

Ultimately there are 24 teams, some go down, others go up. So our focus is initially on getting off to a good start and we’ll reassess after that.

It would have been nice to have had the first game at home because you get that euphoria and the big crowd behind you.

But it makes no difference to us. Ultimately it means we’ve got to go and get a result against Shrewsbury – whether that’s at home or away is irrelevant.

They are another team who have made a lot of changes. They just missed out on promotion last season at Wembley and I’m sure they’ll be discussing about going one better.

They’ve got a new manager in place who will bring in his own ideas and it will be a good test for us.

But you never quite know where you’re at until that first game of the season.

I’ve seen teams that win every game in pre-season and then lose the first five. I’ve also seen those who lose every game in pre-season and then win the first five.

It is difficult to gauge but we’re pleased with where we’re at. We’re not where we want to be but we’re in the process so that over time those messages do drip in.

The main aim is being very organised and then over time start producing some of the football that we know these players are capable of.

We know it’s going to be a very competitive division.

With the money that’s now involved in football in the Premier League and Championship, it’s starting to look like the sort of teams that should be in those divisions.

I remember five or six years ago, you had some massive clubs in Leagues One and Two. But the game is almost levelling itself out now.

The bigger clubs are heading towards the Championship and the Premier League and everyone else is down below that.

We class ourselves as a big club. We’re one that’s looking up rather than to steady the ship.

But we have to start right and give ourselves a platform. I’m confident with what we’re seeing at the moment that we’ll get there.

The lads have been superb and I can’t fault how they have gone about everything so far.

We won’t go into the first game tomorrow saying we haven’t done this or we should have done that.

There are no excuses. We knew what was expected when we came in and we feel we’re on track.