MARK Hughes has stressed how important the existing players will be in his ever-changing City squad.

A flurry of new faces at Valley Parade has highlighted how different next season’s dressing room will look.

But Hughes knows those who have already worked with him will have a big part to play in helping the group to bed down.

He said: “The fundamentals are going to be there. We’re going to have a core group that have worked with us right from the start.

“That work we’ve done with them will hopefully be filtered to the guys that are new to what we’re about.

“That happens very quickly. It’s about standards and the level that we train and play at.

“Players will have to get up to that very quickly if it’s a level that they are not used to.

“We’re hoping that we’re going to get guys in the building used to training at a high level and that’s their expectation. That will obviously raise the group to another level, which is important to us.”

Hughes feels he has had a head start building up to his first full season in the hot-seat after being appointed at the end of February.

That 13-game introduction to the club and League Two has given the City boss and his assistant Glyn Hodges a valuable insight into what needs to be done for a campaign that is already exciting the fans.

Hughes added: “Myself and Glyn have talked about it on numerous occasions about how important this time has been for us to really understand what we’ve been working with and what we need to do in this summer break to get recruitment right.

“If the change had been made at the end of the season and we were coming in now, we clearly wouldn’t have had that knowledge base.

“Working with somebody is a lot more insightful than watching a tape or a video. Until you actually work with guys, you don’t really know what you’ve got.

“We’ve had the benefit of doing that and it’s enabled us to make the right decisions on the majority of them.”

Lee Angol, Matty Foulds, Levi Sutton and Luke Hendrie have all signed new deals alongside the rush of signings.

Sutton agrees the experience of working under the Welshman for the last few months will be a benefit when the players return in a couple of weeks.

“I think the transition was fairly smooth as it was,” said the midfielder, who recently penned another two-year contract. “But a full pre-season gives him more time.

“We can help to explain things to new players who come into the club.

“We need to just try and help each other. That’s the only way we’re going to get out of this division if we all fully understand what we are trying to do here.”