ATHLETIC'S younger players have impressed their new manager and James McPake has encouraged them to earn a place in his side.

The East End boss has heaped praise on coach Greg Shields, who is set to lead the club's academy, for his "excellent" work with them as they bid to impress during pre-season.

But McPake is still working to add to his squad, and has cited that attitude and the "right mentality", as well as ability, will be key factors in who he brings in.

Preparations for the new campaign continued with a closed-door friendly with Stenhousemuir on Saturday, in which Paul Allan and Matty Todd got the goals in a 2-0 win, and a home match with Kilmarnock this evening (Tuesday).

When asked if they provided an opportunity to try out different ideas, McPake replied: "You always do find different things, particularly with younger ones, and I've been impressed with them.

"It's great, the ones that have been up training. They've come into the first-team environment and they've worked hard.

"It's been hard for them; it will be a lot of their first pre-seasons, so it's not easy. I can remember being at that stage myself but you get to see them in the games and the characters they've got as well.

"It's a chance for them to go out and show all the coaching staff that they could, potentially, have a big part to play this season."

Last month, the club promoted five young recruits – former favourite Andy Tod's son, and midfielder, Andrew, 16; goalkeeper Calum Archibald, 17; defender Sam Young, 16; and midfield duo Jake Rennie and Michael Beagley, 17 – to the first-team squad on Shields' advice.

When asked if some of the younger members of his squad could come into his thinking, McPake replied: "They need to keep doing that.

"A lot of the senior players I knew – I'd either managed against them, played against them, or played with some of them – to a degree, so the younger ones, they were the fresh ones coming in.

"They've worked well but I don't expect anything less. Greg Shields has been excellent with them, he's got them working really well, and he'll continue to do that.

"They are young and we will need to be patient with them, but we want to develop our own players as well. That's a major part, as a coaching staff, of what we try and pride ourselves on. We want to continue that.

"I've shown that (willing to give young players an opportunity) as a coaching staff. We proved that at our previous club that, coming from an academy background and taking the under-18s at Dundee, and giving nine or 10 of them debuts.

"It doesn't matter to me their age; you see 20-, 21-year-olds now and they're superstars playing every week all over the world.

"If we go in and I think the younger ones are there and they could help the team, or they could make us a better team, I'm not going to care what age they are or who we'll be leaving out.

"They've got to earn it as well and they've got to prove they can handle that. We'll see that over the next couple of weeks."

On potential further additions to his squad – he's already signed Kyle Benedictus and Chris Hamilton – McPake added: "The attitude, first and foremost, is huge. It's really important to get the right people in with the right mentality that, first and foremost, want to work hard.

"I know it sounds simple but get the ones that want to work hard, and then you find the ones with talent that want to work hard.

"If you can do that, and have a core of that, you give yourself a chance because it's a tough, tough league.

"Football's tough. Even the part-time teams now, they're a lot fitter than they used to be, so you need to be fit, you need to be strong, and you need to be willing to fight in games. It's not always pretty.

"It's not going to be a rushed process, and I make no apologies for that because it has got to be the right profile of person that's coming into the club, but also the right profile of player for what we're trying to do.

"We'll get that right I'm sure."