SWINDON Town’s players will be fighting for a spot in the club’s first team this afternoon when facing Portsmouth at the Energy Check County Ground in another pre-season friendly, states boss Phil Brown.

To date, Brown has experimented with shape and formation as well as drilling the importance of fitness into his squad ahead of Town’s first League Two fixture of the new campaign against Macclesfield Town on Saturday, August 4.

But the Town squad will now come under scrutiny from Brown as he starts to form an idea as to what his starting XI will look like.

Brown said: “I want everyone to be fighting for their shirt.

“From this moment onwards, players are fighting for a spot in the starting team come August 4. It’s as simple as that.

“Hopefully they will be staking a claim for a team spot on Saturday. I want competition for team places, one thing I don’t want to do is to be naming the same XI all the time.”

Today’s starting team is expected to be made up of players that Brown feels require 90 minutes of football the most.

New recruits Toumani Diagouraga and Jak McCourt are likely to feature, with the Town boss highlighting the importance of getting minutes into the legs of his latest additions.

And after mid-week losses to non-league side Chippenham Town and Portuguese giants Benfica, Brown is anticipating a typical ‘English’ encounter at SN1.

He said: “I’m not saying this game will be a typical ‘second division’ game.

“Portsmouth are a big club and we are a big club, albeit in the lower league.

“It should be more of an English encounter as opposed to Wednesday’s match against Benfica, which was a typical foreign performance that caused us a lot of problems.

“I’ll be looking to try to get 90 minutes out of the players that need 90 minutes.

“Bearing in mind that our League Two campaign starts in two weeks' time, I think the most important thing is that we see one or two of the players that we’ve signed.”

Amid Town’s concluding pre-season games – which includes a trip to Swindon Supermarine and a potential behind-closed-doors game against Premier League side Southampton – Brown is looking to fine tune the minor details to his squad’s tactical awareness.

He has already highlighted the importance of dead ball situations, and ensuring players are ready for a 46-game season is a priority.

He said: “Fine tuning is the word that I use.

“It’s about making sure when that whistle blows on August 4, we are all prepared and ready.”