Tam O'Ware has said that he is looking for his new recruits to adapt to Kelty Hearts' way of playing "as quick as possible" after they began pre-season.
The Maroon Machine returned to training ahead of the new campaign on June 11 and welcomed six fresh faces into his squad.
Ryan Shanley, Finn Moffett, Callum Hannah, Jamie Smith, Connor McManus, and Gordon Walker, have all joined this summer, as the club prepares for life in League Two.
All of them started Kelty's first friendly at the weekend, a 2-1 loss at Gala Fairydean Rovers, which also saw them name three trialists as substitutes, and see defender, Callum Flatman, return to the squad after missing the whole of last term with injury.
O'Ware has said that results in pre-season fixtures, which continue at East Kilbride this Saturday, are not the most important factor.
Instead, he's looking for his players to continue to build fitness, and develop relationships on the field.
"Pre-season's a big part of the season as a whole and you want to build those relationships in the squad," he explained.
"You want to build the foundations throughout the team, and the different units of the team.
"You're in, you know the hard work that's going to be required in pre-season, and it gets you that base fitness for the season ahead.
"The big bit for the new players coming in is we want them to adapt to how we play as quick as possible.
"It takes time, but we've kept quite a significant number of players from last season, so, it should be easier for them to gel in.
"Games will be a big part of that. Training, of course, we'll try and get our behaviours and principles across, but the games will be a massive indicator of where we are as a group.
"The first few games is mainly just about getting that load into them. It's been a while since our last game.
"The four (training) sessions leading up to the game, we can get so much out of, but the games bring that different type of fitness, and build up towards that match fitness.
"Everything's in line with the Premier Sports Cup, and we worked backwards from there when we were planning.
"Of course, you want to create that winning culture, but the main bit of the pre-season games will be to establish how we want to play games, and build those relationships on the park.
"I want to see as many behaviours as we can, throughout the pre-season games, that we train on every week."
The game at Gala was Kelty's first outing in seven weeks, since they signed off their unsuccessful battle against relegation from League One with a 2-0 win at Peterhead.
They'll be hoping to be challenging for an immediate return to the third tier, where they spent four successive seasons, and O'Ware, speaking to Kelty Hearts TV, continued: "I'm just excited to get back in.
"It's been a long off season, and you sit for so long getting players in and through the door, that you just want to get back in the building and on the pitch.
"We touched base with all of them a couple of weeks before the start date and they've all came back in a real good condition.
"That's always the message that we say to them before they leave, that, the better shape they come back in, then the quicker we can get into more tactical and football elements of pre-season."
Lewis Moore scored Kelty's goal in their defeat at Gala.
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