Stirling Albion boss Greig McDonald believes he has a better team now than his heroes who clinched promotion back in May.

The Binos boss has added fresh talent to his squad such as Lewis Coult, Steven Doris and Darren Lee Smith while seeing last year’s strike duo of Jordan White and David Weatherston head for pastures new, at Livingston and Alloa, respectively.

But the 32-year-old gaffer reckons his men now have strength in depth and that was plain for all to see – given the players who were still absent from a formidable-looking line-up fielded against Alloa last weekend.

McDonald told Stirling News Sport: “We have a better squad this year and we have definitely improved. We have the likes of David McClune, Graham and Darren Smith who are not far away from fitness and we could have risked them against Alloa but we have to be honest and make sure the league is a priority for us.

“But it really shows the strength of our squad this season. We also had the threat of Lewis Coult, Sandy Cunningham and Willie Robertson coming on off the bench as well so we have a variety of options but we will need that for what will be a long and difficult season for us.” McDonald now takes his side to Balmoor on Saturday for their SPFL League One opener against League Two Champions Peterhead and the manager believes his men can take heart from their previous visit there last year.

He said: “We are going up to Peterhead first and we know it will be tough for us because they won our league comfortably last year.

“On the other hand we know we can cause them problems and we beat them 4-0 the last time we played when they got the trophy so they will be hurting from that still.

“We need to take confidence from that but we are a better team than we were last year and we have to go out and show that this season.

“I know Jim McInally has also added some new quality to his squad so it should make for an interesting match this weekend and it is one we are looking forward to.” Despite all of the pre-season optimism, the Forthbank boss insists his side’s focus will be purely on league survival and anything else would be a bonus.

“I think any newly promoted team into a division would be foolish to aim for anything other than survival first and so we will go with that aim and see where that takes us.”