Town head coach David Wagner admits they will need every ounce of team spirit – and full backing from the fans – to be competitive in the Premier League this season.

Having masterminded the club’s sensational promotion via the Championship play-offs last term, the German has since signed a new two-year contract and brought in nine new players to the squad.

They have been settling in during pre-season at PPG Canalside, a mini-tour to Sandhausen in Germany and a week-long training camp in Austria, which featured the final preparation matches against VfB Stuttgart and Italian giants Torino.

“The bonding in our group has been excellent, even from the early part of pre-season,” said Wagner, just 10 weeks on from that play-off final penalty shoot-out victory over Reading at Wembley.

“It is hard to avoid bonding when you are together 24/7, but we made sure we were able to keep the good characters on our side in the dressing room from last season.

“And they made it very, very easy for the new guys to join the group.

“It’s true, as well, that the characters we have signed are very good characters, so this has helped us take some big steps.

“So the atmosphere in the group is at a very, very high level – and we need this atmosphere to be competitive in the season.

“We need to make sure we keep that running, and I’m sure we will.”

Wagner relishes the fact there is a lot more interest in Town, both at home and abroad, than there was 18 months ago.

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That’s down to their fifth-place finish in the Championship – when they received much praise from within the game for the quality of their play – and their ultimate success at the national stadium to book a top-flight place for the first time in 45 years.

Around 40,000 fans saw Christopher Schindler’s decisive spot-kick – some travelling from the other side of the world just to be there – and the John Smith’s Stadium will be a sell-out through the 2017-18 campaign.

“Our pre-season has been very good and we have been able to build having started at a very high level (of fitness),” explained the boss, who put the squad through their paces in sweltering heat in Austria last week.

“We went to Austria last season as well and, while this time we were in a different destination, it was again a very good place to be.

“We had a great hotel, good food and a perfect training pitch, so everything we wanted was there for us to prepare in the last stage of our pre-season.

“From a bonding point of view it was ideal. If you are in the dining room or on the training pitch you can feel this atmosphere – they have come together.”

Calling on the fans, again, to play their part, Wagner added: "You created something special from the stands and played such a big part in helping the players achieve what they have."