Millington wants Town be aggressive and on the front-foot in Saturday's season-opener against Bromley

Halifax's pre-season schedule ended on Tuesday night as a second-string 11 lost 2-1 at Radcliffe.

Millington says he has seen plenty of positives from Town's pre-season games and wants to see those carried into Saturday's match.

"I want us to be really aggressive, really front-foot," he told the Courier.

"What we've demonstrated in a couple of the games where we've had a really strong 11 in pre-season is the ability to really hurt teams on the counter-attack, and to stay on the ball in the opposition half and create chances off the back of it.

"So I want us to be able to do that and, crucially, I want us to do everything we possibly can to try and keep a clean sheet."

Millington said he didn't know his team for Bromley yet, with his main decisions set to be over who starts alongside Jamie Stott and Adam Senior in the back three, who partners Jack Hunter in midfield and who makes up his front three.

Jamie Cooke didn't feature at all at Radcliffe, so is expected to start in one of the two number ten roles.

Millington is optimistic about The Shaymen's chances this season.

"I think we can beat anyone in the league," he said, "I think we showed that last year and I think if we improve our results and our form against the so-called lesser teams, then I think we'll be a really formidable force.

"We've got to aim to achieve that, we've got to aim to go into every game and win it, and if we do that I'm confident that we've got the players to win more than we lose and be fighting right at the top end of the division."

Town were bottom of the league at the start of October last year, having won just two of their first 11 games, and Millington accepts there can be no such false start again this term.

"We've got to start the season better than we did last season," he admitted.

"We can't be ten games in and scrapping around trying to find our best team and trying to find a way to stop conceding and start scoring.

"What we've got to do is start in a much more solid way, and we can't give teams a head start like we did last season.

"If we hadn't had that atrocious start to the season, we'd have put ourselves in with a very significant chance of finishing in the play-offs.

"Had we picked up a few more points in that early spell, where we battered Torquay and lost 1-0, where we were in control against Southend and drew 0-0 and one or two other games I'd rather not think about, we'd have finished in the play-offs and won the FA Trophy, and that would have been as successful a season as the club's had in its recent history.

"I know there's some negativity around last season and one or two who may even be expecting a similar start, but let's be realistic, we're not going to start like that this season, and if we manage to start better but maintain the form we had the rest of last season, we should be a play-off side."

When asked what his message to the fans was ahead of the new season, Millington said: "Positivity, I want them to be up for it and get behind the team.

"Let's not moan about the one or two things we need to do better, let's be really positive about the seven or eight things we do really well.

"I get information fed back to me about grumblings about us needing a 20 goal a season striker, and if anyone wants to unearth one and donate us one hundred grand to go and buy and then one hundred grand to pay their wages, then we'd be more than happy to do that.

"But the fans have got to realise that Oldham have spent inordinate amounts of money in transfers and wages trying to find that striker and I'd question whether or not they've succeeded yet.

"So let's be realistic, we've got to work our socks off to be the very best version of ourselves and we've got to back the lads we've got to go and show what they can do, which I know on the day they can be amongst the best in the league.

"So let's be positive and get right behind them."

Millington will be without Festus Arthur, Kane Thomson-Sommers and Florent Hoti, and could be without Tom Clarke and Luke Summerfield, for the Bromley game, all of whom are injured.

When asked whether the club could be doing more to prevent such injuries, Millington said: "It's a valid question, and it's something we reflect on and investigate thoroughly.

"Aaron Scholes, who looks after that side of things, is excellent, he works very hard and he works very closely with us, and everything we do in terms of planning and delivering sessions is closely monitored.

"But we're always looking for better ways, we've been offered and accepted the help of a high-profile person to come in and review our processes and planning and around certain aspects of our strength and conditioning and how we build players up and then what kind of stresses we put them under.

"So it's something we're looking at and that we want to be better at.

"We work on a tight budget with a relatively small squad and we can't afford to have too many out injured at any given time because they've all got to be fit and ready to contribute.

"When you're losing a number of players in one position, like we are at the moment, it puts incredible stress on the squad, so we acknowledge it, we recognise it and we're doing everything we can to see if there's something we need to do better."