Gillingham are back training, the fixtures are out and boss Neil Harris is preparing for a much tougher season in League 2 this time around.

The Gills are no longer the poor relations in the league but they aren’t the only team with resources and ambition.

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“It will be more difficult [this season],” Harris predicted.

“Stockport, Salford, Mansfield, Bradford, MK Dons, Wrexham, they are well set at the levels, financially. They are the clubs we are chasing still.

“You then look at Morecambe and Accrington, they might not be exciting clubs in the football world, but they have got a lot of knowhow in (managers) John Coleman and Dereck Adams on how to get out of this division. You don’t know what you are going to get from those sides.

“Wrexham won the National League but Notts County finished with 107 points. They are a good team!

“It’s going to be a lot tougher than last year and that’s why there has to be a little bit of reality for us in building, from what’s outside, on what is achievable, but we’re going to give ourselves the best opportunity to be as competitive as we possibly can.”

This summer Gillingham are carefully adding quality to a squad that was drastically improved in January, competing for players with a better chance of getting them, but Harris admits it’s still a challenge.

He said: “We are still missing out on players. We are not cherry-picking the best players, we are not like Wrexham in the National League last year who could do that, even Stockport to a degree and Mansfield last summer did that and to a degree are still doing that above us but we’re competitive now. That’s all I can ask.

“It was a really tough couple of years for the football club before Brad and Shannon (Galinson) came in. Last year we were losing players, no disrespect to those teams, but we lost players to Crewe, Harrogate and Newport.

“We lost various players to the National League, whereas this year we are competing with Bradford and Stockport for players and being linked with players plying their trade in the league above is really positive.

“I don’t want to dampen any expectation but we’re not going to be in the top three or four budgets in the divisions, just because the level of financing in football now is ridiculous, but we’re able to compete and it’s a brilliant position for me to be in, a real exciting position.

“We have an improved budget (compared to last summer), not a crazy one, but we can attract better players. It doesn’t mean we are going to get every one right. If we can get 75% right then happy days. That would be an unbelievable return. I think in January that’s what we did really well.

“We had to fight tooth and nail to get the players we got with the calibre that we got, with the League 2 knowhow we got, but anybody judging us on our business in January, they would say ‘bloody good business’ and if they don’t agree I would say look at the stats - they speak for themselves.

“We’re trying to get more right than we get wrong in this window because even Man City and Liverpool don’t get it all right. Getting more right than wrong puts you in a really good position.

“What we have got is a football board that has got extensive knowledge and standing in the game that when [potential signings] come to me, yes, they come to meet me as a manager, but they come to meet the board as well. When they walk in they are wowed by the people standing in front of them.

“I don’t do social media but I can say to them ‘go on social media and see what the fans think’ and you see the positivity on it. It’s mega.

“That’s where we have the feelgood factor at the moment and we just want to keep feeding that all the time.”