United defender Scott Wootton says he is looking forward to competition for gaining a starting place for our first league game of the season on August 9.

The defender missed the pre-season trip to Italy but played 30-minutes at Guiseley on Saturday and 60-minutes at Mansfield on Tuesday night, and he says he can’t wait for the battle for places.

“We are now playing for that first game of the season,” said Wootton. “It’s now up to the lads to put in the performances and claim the shirt.

“There is a battle at the moment. There are three of us, me, Jason Pearce and Tom Lees. I’m not sure what formations we are going to play but there will probably two out of the three playing.

“It is good for competition and I think that Jason and Tom are good players so it will be a tough battle between us all but I’m looking forward to it."

United suffered a shock pre-season defeat at Mansfield on Tuesday night and although the defender admits to being disappointing he insists the main thing at the moment is match fitness.

“It is still pre-season and it is all about match fitness,” added the defender. “We changed it round on Tuesday night with the lads that played half-an-hour at Guiseley playing an hour. So it is all good progress in terms of match fitness.

“We are all professional sportsman so any game that we go into we want to win. It is annoying that we lost the game but I think that the main thing is to get the lads fitter for the first game at Millwall.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do. We finished 15th last season and we need to build on that. We need to work hard in training and we need to implement that into the games as well.”

VIDEO: SCOTT WOOTTON: DEFENDER WANTS THE SHIRT

Looking ahead to Chesterfield (3pm) on Saturday the defender says the opposition is a “nice progression” with the start of the Championship season getting closer.

“We’ve played a conference north team, League Two on Tuesday and Chesterfield are a League One side who we play on Saturday,” added Scott. “It’s a nice progression up to the first game of the season when we play Millwall.”