IMPERIOUS Eastleigh centre-back Andrew Boyce has previewed their 2021-22 National League opener against Wrexham and insisted: “They’ll be looking at us thinking it’s going to be a tough game.”

The Welsh outfit have stolen the spotlight within the fifth division due to their Hollywood owners, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, and have backed that up with some red carpet introductions.

Most notably League Two’s top goalscorer last season Paul Mullin, who fired Cambridge United up and out of the division, blowing the competition away with over 30 strikes.

But Wrexham were pegged back by a 94th minute brace from Joe Sbarra in their opening fixture at Solihull Moors, after Mullin had opened his account from the spot.

And 31-year-old former Football League centre-back Boyce will be tasked with keeping the stars quiet, admitting to the Daily Echo: “We know they’ve made some big signings.

“They’re going to want to get the ball into the box, I think they play with three centre-backs so they’ll have wing-backs trying to cross the ball.

“But we’ll do our preparation on them Thursday and Friday, watch some videos, we know they’re going to be a strong team this year. But like I say it’s the National League, there’s no easy games and I’m sure they’ll be looking at us thinking it’s going to be a tough game.

“Everyone knows what this league is, it’s a tough league, there’s no gimme’s, games where you think ‘you’ll get three points there’.

“Some of the new lads have played in this league, but for those who have come down on loan we’ve had to speak to them about it and say it’s a million miles an hour, you’ve got to do things quick, you’ve got to be strong.

“We were disappointed last season, the Altrincham game was the one that was really disappointing, but that’s the good thing about seasons, there’s always another one around the corner.”

After a pre-season campaign that was slightly extended due to not playing on the opening weekend – thanks to the bye week falling at the feet of the Silverlake outfit, due to the 23-team makeup of the division – the Spitfires will be raring to finally get going.

It’s a vastly changed squad with a lot of players only signing on towards the latter stages of pre-season, which ended in a friendly 1-0 defeat to Brentford B team at AFC Totton’s Snows Stadium.

Boyce added: “Yeah, very excited to be honest.

“I know we should have started last week so I think we came in a few days later because we knew we had the spare fixture, but we’re all looking forward to it.”

Before joking: “I’m not a massive fan of pre-season, a big lad, I don’t like running that much. I just like to sit near the middle-back.

“But we’ve got some fit lads, it were tough, the first two weeks were pretty hard doing big runs every day.”

Ben Strevens' Eastleigh kick off at the Silverlake Stadium on Saturday August 28, at 3pm.