Cove Rangers boss Paul Hartley insists they will be ready for the start of League One as he looks to finalise pre-season friendlies.
The League Two champions resumed training last week and have now had four sessions back, as they start to get up to speed ahead of October’s start date.
Training is broken down into smaller groups for the time being, owing to government and Scottish FA guidelines, while players are being temperature-checked upon arrival at the Balmoral Stadium.
Cove begin their League One campaign at home to East Fife on October 17, with a televised home fixture in the Betfred Cup the week before against Hibernian.
Hartley said: “We’ve had four sessions in with them just to get back into the swing of things. It’s been pretty straight-forward – we’ve coped with it really well. The medical team have done really well and we’ve just followed the guidelines with what we can do and what we can’t do.
“The players have missed it. You don’t appreciate football until you’ve not had it. We’ve had a period of five or six months where we’ve not had it. The players have come back in really good condition, they’ve trained well and while there’s still a lot of work to put in, they’re glad to be back.
“We’re trying to finalise some games. We feel we’re going to have enough time; I always work towards the first league game of the season. The cup games are a bonus. We’ll roughly have seven weeks before the first game, so that gives us enough preparation.”
The Cove boss continues to work on adding to his squad, with Adam Livingstone the second summer signing last week.
Livingstone joined on a two-year deal after his release by Premiership side Motherwell and knows current Cove assistant manager Gordon Young from their time working together in the ‘Well academy.
Hartley added: “Adam will do well for us and has good experience in the Championship and League One. He’s been at Motherwell too so has a good grounding. It gives us a bit of versatility down the left-hand side.
“Gordon (Young) knows him pretty well from being a youngster at Motherwell, so we’re pleased to get that one in. We’re slowly but surely adding to the squad.
“Harry Milne can play in(field) one and Adam can play up(field) one. We need the versatility; we need competition in every area of the pitch. We’re still maybe one or two short.”