Rangers manager Ally McCoist believes his squad's pre-season preparations are incomparable to last year.
And, while he is loath to make predictions about how that will affect their form when the campaign starts, he has been encouraged by all facets of their approach.
Rangers secured their third friendly win this summer when they beat Bristol City thanks to Lewis MacLeod's solitary goal yesterday, with most of their seven summer signings taking part before the squad flew to Germany for a training camp.
Last year McCoist's men were hampered by a signing embargo and an inability to play official friendlies before provisionally securing Scottish Football Association membership less than 48 hours before facing Brechin in their domestic opener.
McCoist, whose side were criticised for their fitness levels on their way to the Third Division title, told the club's official website: "Last year everyone was just thrown in together with no real organisation, no games and certainly not the training schedule we'd have wanted for them.
"This time it is very different and everyone is getting to know each other. We're still in the early stages but everyone is benefiting from the way things are going.
"I'm not going to tempt fate in terms of results but, looking at our preparations, it's like night and day between last summer and now.
"We're miles ahead of where we were going into the season last July and you can see that.
"Our fitness levels are far greater and I'm really pleased with how things are going."
McCoist is hoping to tie up a deal for trialist Bilel Mohsni while the club are also looking to secure Bosnia centre-back Boris Pandza.
But he feels his young players are already responding well to the increased competition.
"Lewis is standing out and Kyle Hutton is doing some top-drawer stuff at the moment," he said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article