Kevin Nolan is pleased with what he has seen from his players in pre-season so far.
The Notts squad returned from their summer break last week and are preparing for their first pre-season friendly against a Rolls Royce Leisure Select XI on Saturday afternoon (3pm).
The manager said: "The players have reported back in fantastic shape and everyone is ahead of where we wanted them to be. Now we have to hold them back a little. We don't want to do too much too soon because that's when injuries can pile up.
"The good thing is that the players have bought into what we want to do. It speaks volumes that everyone we offered a new contract to decided to stay. It means everyone in the squad is on board."
Curtis Thompson was one of nine players to extend their Meadow Lane stay this summer
With three new players added to the ranks so far, the manager is aware that there are still places in the squad yet to be filled.
But he is willing to be patient in order to bring in the right players.
"We have had targets for a while now and we will stick to them," he said.
"There have been conversations between us and other clubs but we don't want to be in negotiations for too long and not getting the players in until the final weeks of pre-season.
"We want them to be able to withstand what our players have already been going through since they came back.
"Hopefully we will bring a few more in but I don't want to put a number on it. A lot of fans will be frustrated seeing other clubs sign a number of players but we are a club in transition.
"Looking back to where we were when Alan and I first came in, we are in a fantastic position and can hopefully build this club step-by-step.
"All I can do is ask for trust and patience in myself, my staff and Alan because we are working as hard as we can to get players through the door.
"We have to do our due diligence and make sure they are the right character and that they want to come here. They have to be able to contribute to the club and hit the ground running. We want to get them in as quickly as possible but it's not always the way in football. You have to be patient.
"You never know what will pop up later in the window so we don't want to do all of our work very early on. People can suddenly become available and you think 'We would have had him', so we are not blowing our budget. We have to be shrewd so that if those one or two players pop up - as they did in January - we can go and get them."
Supporters can watch the full interview with Nolan on iFollow now.