St Albans City’s Louie Theophanous says pre-season is all about developing the squad – and thinks things are “coming along nicely”.

Last season’s top scorer with 22 in all competitions is one of a few players to stay at Clarence Park over the summer.

And with a number of new players in the Saints’ line-up, he is not getting carried away with results at the moment.

He said: “We’ll take it for what it is. It’s good playing against different levels of opposition and different styles of football.

“It’s not going to be like that in the National South but it’s good for improving our sharpness and getting ready for the start of the season.

“It’s about making everyone gel together, which takes time, but that’s exactly what pre-season is for.

“It’s about getting the fitness and finding out the best partnerships on and off the field. You can’t get too carried away because some games are going to be nothing like what you’ll get in the season.”

Towards the end of the season Theophanous had struck up a good understanding with Charlie MacDonald but with the veteran choosing to move to Greenwich Borough, the 24-year-old is now trying to forge an understanding with new striker, Junior Morias.

And he is happy with how things are progressing.

“He’s a very good player,” said Theophanous. “I can play up front with him or on the wing. But it’s coming together nicely.

“It was hard against a premiership team [like Watford] as it’s not going to be easy to get the ball down and do things that we want.

“But we’ve got a lot of good players come in. It’s going to be interesting to see how we all go in this period.”

Theophanous took on the captain’s armband against both Stevenage and Watford in the absence of club skipper Lee Chappell.

But he says that has not added any burden to his shoulders.

He said: “We know what we expect and we expect a lot of ourselves anyway. We want to give our best in every game and as long as you give what you’ve got, there’s no pressure.”