* Click here to sign up to free news and sport alerts from Guiseley Today.

Steve Kittrick's men had their promotion hopes smashed when they went down 2-1 after extra-time at Nantwich in the Premier Division semi-finals in April – and they are in no mood for a repeat performance.

* Click here to become a fan of Guiseley Today on Facebook.

Kittrick has gone out to solve his side's Achilles heel this summer – by bringing some true grit into the club – and he feels his squad are in much better shape to go all the way.

* Click here for latest news in Guiseley.

Ahead of tomorrow's opener at home to Matlock, Kittrick said: "The aim is to do better than last year and, like any team, we want to win it. We don't want to get into the lottery of the play-offs.

"The way they did it last year was poor. We finished the league games on the Saturday and had to go to Nantwich for a one-off game on the Tuesday night. There was no time to prepare whatsoever.

"Why they couldn't play it the following weekend I don't know. We finished fourth last season and hopefully we can take three more steps and win it."

Kittrick has certainly been busy, bringing in the likes of centre-half Martin McIntosh, from Alfreton, midfielders Liam Needham (Gainsborough), Craig Bentham (Farsley) and Chris Holland (Fleetwood) and strikers Lee Tuck (Farsley), Nathan Joints (Stalybridge) and James Nestor. Goalkeeper Jon Worsnop has also arrived from Bradford Park Avenue.

And Kittrick said: "I feel we're a bit stronger all-round.

"They say it's not how you start that matters but how you finish, but last season we started and finished well.

"We had an horrendous run when we got a lot of injuries in the middle of the season and maybe we have learned from that.
"We slipped up at clubs where we were expected to win, but where we knew we were in for hard games. Teams like Cammel Laird and Prescot Cables, who are not massively fashionable, turned us over.

"But we have added some grit this year and I think we will do a lot better at teams like that."