Gillingham manager Neil Harris is wary of burdening his squad with extra pressure as hype for the new season continues to grow.

The Gills are among the favourites with the bookies to win League 2 and chairman Brad Galinson has also talked up their desire to win promotion - but the manager is trying to keep a lid on it.

With 10-year-high season- ticket sales, the fans are certainly expecting a good season ahead and with some key signings yet to be made, there is plenty of optimism around.

Harris, when asked about the expectations on his side, said: “We don’t know, nobody knows until you get going and you judge it, and I always talk about 10-12 games in you get a better idea.

“On paper we look like a team that should be well in the top half and certainly pushing for top seven, let’s be honest. Our aim will be we wanting to get into that top seven.

“I don’t want to put too much pressure on the group but we feel we have recruited good players in January and kept a core group that are really positive taking us forward.

“I feel like we have added good players so far in this window so we certainly need to be thinking top half, pushing top seven and then judge as we go.

“It is wrong for me to have any vast expectations on the group while we haven’t even played a pre-season friendly yet.

“On paper we are building really nicely and as a football club we want to make sure that come the end of April, start of May next year, that we are right up there or thereabouts.

“The excitement that is going on with how we finished [last season] and how the club is building the infrastructure behind the scenes, the players we are signing, the players we are being linked with, then that adds to the expectation levels and that is what I have been trying to settle a little bit.”

Gillingham begin their pre-season on Saturday with a trip to National South side Dover Athletic (1pm kick off).