Sporting Bengal United manager Imrul Gazi says that despite having to rebuild his squad during the summer he still wants an improved season in the Essex Senior League.

The Mile End Stadium outfit finished eighth last term and broke their record points tally with 53 after also breaking it the season prior.

The boss now wants to break the record for a third consecutive campaign and believes his squad are good enough to do so.

"The target every year is improving on the previous," said Gazi.

"We finished eighth last year and beat the record points tally with 53, so my target will be to achieve better than that.

"The key thing is we've had to rebuild and find players in key positions whilst also retaining as many of the key players from last season as possible."

Bengal start the new season with five away matches in the league - beating Southend Manor 1-0 on Saturday - as well as a trip to Walthamstow in the FA Cup.

"It's going to be really important to just stabilise the squad and try to have the best possible start to the season that we can, because we've got five fixtures away from home," added Gazi.

The Bengal boss also revealed it will be a big challenge for some of his new signings so they will mainly set targets for the first 10 fixtures.

"We'll see where we are after 10 games, but it's very different this season as we have new faces coming into the squad," he said.

"We don't know how they're going to cope with the Essex Senior League, a lot of the players either haven't played in the league as they're coming from different leagues, and some are coming from our Sunday League.

"Although we have retained a lot of key players, we've managed to keep hold of the likes of Steven Carvell, we've got him back at the club, and Kamarl Duncan who scored 12 goals last season from centre-back.

"And as Freddy Tandon has left we're looking for Kamarl to fill that void.

"Also Joshua Adeji, Bobby Redwood, and Curtley McIntosh. I'm really hoping Curtley can step up, last year was his first proper season with the club and he did really well.

"He grew into the forward position and scored a number of important goals so I'm hoping he matures and can keep that number nine shirt to himself."