BRAINTREE Town manager Glen Driver says players will have two more games to impress before he really starts to fine hone his squad ahead of the start of the Vanarama National League South season.

Driver has been using his team's pre-season action to assess who he wants to take into his first campaign in charge as Iron boss and has seen them beat Newmarket, as well as drawing with Coggeshall Town and West Ham United's under-23s so far.

He used more than 20 players in the games against Coggeshall and Newmarket and had a squad of 18 for the 1-1 draw against the Hammers at Cressing Road on Friday, but has said he wants to have a unit of about 16 when the season starts.

Driver will have another chance to see players in action when they welcome a side from Championship club Brentford tonight (kick-off 7.45pm).

There is then a trip up to Suffolk on Saturday when he will take his side to BetVictor Isthmian League division north club Bury Town and it will be after that that the Iron boss expects to whittle down numbers in his squad.

He said: “At the moment, I’m thinking that we’ll draw a line in the sand after the game against Bury, which is on the 20th (of July).

“That will then give us a good 13 or 14 days with the squad and two games, so after that Bury game I’ll look to have what I’ll most likely go with.

“That gives us two more games to look at people.

“We released a couple ahead of the West Ham game and we thanked them for their efforts and we’ll keep working until we get it right.

“At the moment, we’re a little way off, but had you said to me a month ago that this was where we’d be, playing some good football and being unbeaten – then I’d have taken it.

“It’s just onwards and upwards really."

Braintree's National League South season kicks off with a trip to Bath City on August 3 and when asked if he was still looking at potential players to bring in, Driver said: “Always; I’m always out looking.

“I think if we were going into the game against Bath, that we’ll have on August 3, tomorrow, then we are a little way away from where we need to be, so we do need to keep looking.

“However, there does come a point where you have to say you trust the players you’ve got and go with the players you have.

“There will be a few disappointed people who will not be part of what we’re going to be doing this season.

“There are big and brave decisions to be made, but we will put our trust in the players who we feel can go on and play the level.

“If someone who we feel is better comes available within the budget, though, then we will have to be ruthless and make sure we get a Braintree side together that can do something in this league this year."