"They go into this final weekend with an opportunity to sway my thinking" - Places up for grabs ahead of Town's season opener, says Millington

The Shaymen have a double-header of friendlies this Saturday at Ashton United and Curzon Ashton, with the Town squad set to be separated into two teams both getting 90 minutes each.

Millington will be at both games, with the match at Ashton kicking-off at 12pm before the friendly at Curzon starts at 3pm.

"It's an opportunity to get good minutes into legs," Millington said.

"We'll still have one or two triallists around who are in with a chance of getting offered something.

"It's a good exercise."

Midfielder Kane Thomson-Sommers is said to be progressing well in his recovery from a knee injury, and is expected back around mid-September.

Fellow midfielder Luke Summerfield is back running after a calf injury and could return in the next week or two.

On defender Festus Arthur, Millington said: "He's progressing really well, but he's still got a long lay-off.

"If you ask Festus, he reckons he'll be back in by November.

"Aaron (Scholes, physio) would be more conservative and realistic, and would probably say post-Christmas.

"We wouldn't want to be without Kane, Festus and Luke, we'd want everybody fit and firing.

"But other than that we've got an excellent foundation to build on."

Millington says Town will be as ready as they can be for the first game of the season at home to Bromley next Saturday.

"You can always be more ready," he said, "I don't think anyone ever goes into a season feeling like they've cracked it, and I'd question their mentality if they did to be honest.

"Everyone should go into it with a healthy amount of caution because we're going in with some elements of unknowns.

"We can't be certain what Bromley are going to throw at us, we can't be certain about other aspects until you get into a competitive fixture.

"But we certainly feel like we've covered every base and we couldn't have put ourselves in a better position in these last couple of weeks."

On whether he knows his starting 11 for the Bromley game, Millington said: "I've not really thought about it yet, I'll start working through the plans for Saturday on Wednesday, and that will start to clarify some of the thinking.

"I'd say, off the top of my head, five or six of the positions I could reel off straight away that I'd be confident about, and the other four or five I've got to do a little bit more thinking on.

"We're there or thereabouts, we've put ourselves into a healthy position going into this weekend."

The Town boss said those within his squad in the positions he is undecided in can help their case in the games this Saturday.

"They go into this final weekend with an opportunity to sway my thinking, but then again, everyone does," he added.

"Everybody can sway my thinking either way, if people underperform then that'll raise questions I might not have previously had.

"But if somebody raises the bar, that might give me some more confidence to throw them in against Bromley.

"People can sway my thinking but I'd hope they're always trying to do that, whether it's training, pre-season games or league fixtures."

You can follow all the action from both friendlies on Saturday on the Courier website, with our live blog, match reports and post-match reaction.