Neilston manager Andy Whiteford insists there is no need for a major overhaul at the club, despite relegation to the Second Division of the West of Scotland Football League.

Whiteford will welcome his players back to the Brig O'Lea stadium next week as pre-season training begins.

He aims to lead the Farmer’s Boys straight back to the First Division and has already signed the likes of Nathan Bogle, David Donnelly, Sam Ballantyne, Lloyd Wilkie, Daryl Convery, Robert Wilson and Del McNab on new contracts.

New faces checking in at Neilston include Shaun Grady, who has arrived from Ashfield, and Connor McCabe, formerly of Arthurlie Amateurs.

Whiteford, who took over as manager midway through the 2023/24 campaign, said his first pre-season as boss has already been hectic, although he is pleased to have done much of his transfer business early.

He told Barrhead Sport: “We’re back at training on Monday, which will have given us about a six-week break.

“The season starts on the last weekend in July, so it’s a few weeks' to work ahead.

“It’s not my favourite part of the season. People think you down tools after the last game of the season and you go again six weeks later but it’s probably been the busiest time for me.

“There have been players moving on and new ones coming in, so there’s been a bit of everything but I tried to do as much as I could early on and have much of the squad in place for the start of pre-season.

“I don’t think you can just go and make wholesale changes and I don’t think we needed to.

“I was pleased with a lot of performances from a lot of the guys and it was just big moments going against us.

“I didn’t see a need for a complete overhaul but you still need a freshness, so we’ve added six or seven people.

“I’ve tried to bring in guys who want to be here and have an appetite to go and win things.”

Whiteford will continue to run the rule over other players during pre-season and hopes having plenty of time with his squad without league games to think about will pay dividends.

He added: “We’ll do as much work as we can throughout pre-season and give people plenty of opportunities and, by the time the competitive action starts, we’ll know where we need to be.

“We came in halfway through the season, so this gives us a bit more time to work on the way we want to play.”