Liam Manning was pleased with the first outing of Norwich City's pre-season schedule, a 3-1 win against Northampton Town at the Avant Training Centre.
Played behind closed doors, the friendly saw goals from Matěj Jurásek, La'Sean Sealey and an OG for City.
"A bit of everything, I think," Manning said. "The starting point is the basics are the basics, how we apply ourselves and obviously in terms of the work we've been doing during the week - do you start to see bits come out, which we did today. As a first game, as a first exercise, there was a lot of positives to take.
"It's not easy in terms of the first game, trying to find that rhythm or relationships and not knowing each other. Us asking them to do slightly different things to what they've been asked to do before.
"When you take that all into account and we'll check in now to see if everybody got through it, it's been a tough training week so to get through that and get the 45 minutes, there's a lot of positives to take."
With two different sides starting each half and a handful of changes throughout, Manning said all were pre-planned as they look to share the minutes.
This process was in place with the additional squad members coming back into the picture next week.
"Most of them (changes) were pre-planned. Brad's (Hills) at the end, with his cut, wasn't. Prior to that, it was. It's like that with the group, numerous faces missing today for numerous reasons. Whether that's internationals, or building up people post-injury.
"It's all about managing everybody individually, to see what they need."
Now heading into the third week of their pre-season training, Manning says he has enjoyed being back in Norfolk and back on the training pitch.
"I'm loving being back in the area and I'm loving being at the club, there's some top people here. That's the biggest bit, it's a joy to come in and work," he added.
"The attitude has been top, they've really bought into what we're trying to do. And you can see that today with the competitiveness, the willingness to run and trying to compete as best as they can.
"When you look at the objectives of pre-season, the aim is to obviously stretch people and push them. Build team spirit and give them real clarity and alignment on how we want to play.
"We've got a large number games over there (in the Netherlands) and that balance of fixing the work we do into what was in place. Give the lads the best opportunity to compete."