Avoiding a repeat of last season’s gruelling relegation battle is priority number one for Oxhey Jets boss Tim O’Sullivan as he gets set to lead his side into their 2018/19 Spartan South Midlands Premier Division opener at home to Crawley Green on Saturday.

Patience will certainly be required though as Oxhey remain a work in progress, something they found out the hard way on Tuesday night as they crashed out of the Herts Charity Shield at the first round stage to holders Colney Heath, 4-1.

O’Sullivan conceded that his players were second best, something he insists is down to the complete rebuild he has undertaken at the Boundary Stadium as he attempts to revive their prospects for the long haul.

“Basically I think they were more ready than us. I think their development is a little bit further along than ours at the moment,” said the Jets manager.

“We’re sort of a brand new set-up this season whereas Thommo [Colney Heath manager Ryan Thompson] has been there now for a couple of seasons.

“They are a strong team and they were possibly more ready than we were. We’re still sort of sifting through trying to find the right formation, trying to find the right players, to go forward with.”

That the Jets are even in the division is impressive in itself owing to the scale of the task that confronted O’Sullivan when he returned in April to a club where he once managed the Under-18s.

Answering an SOS call from general manager John Elliott, he shouldered the burden of attempting to preserve the South Oxhey club’s 13-year stay in the South Midlands top flight.

Remarkably, the former Sun Sports boss masterminded a dramatic last-day escape from relegation with victory at already-promoted Berkhamsted, overturning a bleak situation that had seen them three points from safety with six games to go.

“One hundred per cent we don’t want to be involved in a relegation battle. That’s somewhere I don’t want to be,” O’Sullivan said.

“I went from putting my feet up, to literally being slap bang in a relegation battle and it was a bit of a shock to say the least. It was the first time I was ever involved in one.

“The pressure was very high at the time, trying to get us out of it, so I really don’t want to be involved in one of them again.”

While the euphoria - and relief - was undoubtedly something to savour, Jets will be looking to make a splash closer to the right end of the table ahead of the start of the new league season, even if O’Sullivan was coy on specific targets.

Instead he wisely pointed to the changes in the composition of the league and the general uncertainty at this stage of a new campaign that makes premature predictions unwise.

“It is very difficult to predict where we’re going to be, or what we’re going to do,” O’Sullivan said.

“The league has changed, there are a lot of new clubs that have come in, and it’s quite exciting really.”