Kings Langley boss Paul Hobbs says the club are on track for a successful 2017/18 campaign after making a productive start to pre-season.

A final-day win over Cirencester Town secured the club’s Southern League Premier Division status last term and they now hope to push on.

Having made a promising start to pre-season – Kings drew 0-0 with London Colney on Saturday and beat Leverstock Green 3-0 in mid-week – Hobbs is pleased with what he has seen and said: “The players have been good in training. They have come back looking sharp and are raring to go.

“The friendlies are purely to get people fit, try and get some game time for the players and get a pattern of play going.

“Results are secondary and it is about performances. It is always nice to win, but we just want to get enough game time for the players.”

Despite needing a string of positive results late in the campaign to stay up last season, Hobbs has far grander ambitions than just survival this.

He accepts a push for the play-offs is fanciful, but insists a mid-table finish is well within his side’s capability and would represent a big achievement.

“It’s a big push to try and push for the play-offs and that’s not really the aim. We are the only village club playing at this standard of football,” Hobbs explained.

“We want to finish higher than we did last season. If we can finish in mid-table, it would be a stronger finish than last year and would be a remarkable achievement for a club of our standing.

“There are some big teams coming into the league which is only a good thing. That is why we worked so hard to stay up and we want to test ourselves at as a high a level as possible.”

Summer recruitment has seen Mitchell Weiss return to the club and Hobbs expects the forward to lead the line next term.

His first assignment when the campaign gets underway could not be much tougher as they face a Hereford side who will be gunning for a third successive promotion.

The Phoenix club won the Southern Premier Division One South & West title with six games to spare last term and are one of the division’s more well-funded outfits.

Hobbs is under no illusions as to the difficulty of the clash, but hopes his side can catch them off guard early in the campaign.

“It is a tough game to start with, but that is where we want to be and the standard we want to be playing at,” he said.

“It could be a good time to play them, because they don’t know what we are like and if the season goes on and things aren’t going well, I am sure they will dip into the transfer market.

“They have been a pro club before and will have a decent set up behind them. Hopefully we will have a big crowd in and can give them some problems.”