DEFENDER Brian McLean believes that keeping the nucleus of last year's squad will give Morton a crucial edge going into the new campaign.

The 35-year-old feels that the decision to retain the core of the pool is a decision that will serve boss David Hopkin well amid all the uncertainty following the pandemic.

He believes the established nature of the squad will help avoid the away day blues which blighted the first half of Ton's campaign last time out.

McLean said: “We’ve managed to maintain a strong nucleus of a squad from last season which had a great camaraderie and a blend.

"That could win games on its own.

“To bring in maybe 12 or 13 new faces and get them to gel right away is really difficult - that’s probably why it took so long to pick up our first points away from home last year.

“It took us four months, which wasn’t good enough.

"It was an outrageous stat.

“Collectively we’ve got a jump on where we were this time last year.

“I think the gaffer only had three signed players when he arrived this time last year.

“We’ve essentially got a team this time around where we’ve all known each other for 12 months, which is massive going into the campaign."

The experienced centre back says that training has been going well and he feels that Ton are in good shape to make that all-important fast start when the action kicks off next month.

He told the Tele: “We’ve got a challenging season ahead, we know that and the manager knows that.

“We just need to keep to our principles that we set and make sure we look after ourselves.

“We can’t afford to be distracted - you can’t really look at what is happening elsewhere.

“We can only affect what we’ve got in the dressing room and do the things that we know how to.

"I am sure that we will come up good over the course of the season."

The stopper says new boys Gary Oliver and Rabin Omar have helped add a competitive edge as everyone vies for a starting jersey.

He added: “It’s been great to be back in training, the boys have really looked after themselves over the course of the time off and come back in in really good shape.

“To add to that, we’ve signed Gary and Rabin and they add to the competitiveness of the group.

"All we need now is for games to get up and running.

“Six months is a long time off, it’s like an injury effectively.

“It will take us a little longer than usual to get fully back into the swing of things, but we’ve done things properly and looked after ourselves.

“It’s all coming together nicely and now we just need everything to go ahead with the Betfred Cup."