Brentford winger Sam Wood insists he feels no added pressure in his second season as a professional, despite stepping up three levels in the football pyramid in the space of 12 months.

The 22-year-old scooped the player of the year award for the Bees last season as boss Andy Scott’s men landed the League Two title in the manager’s first full season in charge.

This time last year Wood made his home debut against in last year’s pre-season friendly defeat to Ipswich Town weeks after switching to Griffin Park from Blue Square South outfit Bromley last summer.

The midfielder impressed against Roy Keane’s Tractor Boys in Wednesday’s 3-1 reverse, which followed a first run out of the season in a 1-0 defeat at Staines Town on Saturday.

And the former non-Leageu starlet, who is yet to sign an improved extension to the two-year deal that brought him to the club, is confident he can carry that form into the League One opener at Carlisle United.

“I don’t feel any added pressure at all. I’ve just got to keep doing what I’m doing,” he said.

“As a team we had a great year last season. We did really well and personally I had a good year.

“If I can carry one where I left off and keep going, hopefully it will be enough to carry on playing in the team at this level.”

Brentford make the long trip to Cumbria on season’s opening day and with less than a month to go are still looking for their first win of the pre-season schedule having suffered defeats to Farnborough Town, Staines and Ipswich.

Striker Ben Strevens netted his first goal for the club to equalise Lee Martin’s sixth minute opener, but further strikes from 16-year-old Connor Wickham and former Brentford loan player Jordan Rhodes secured the win.

The Bees dominated large parts of the clash and Woods believes fans have every reason to be excited about the coming campaign.

“We’ve brought some new faces into the mix and I think we can keep carry on bringing the excitement back to Griffin Park that we had last year,” he added.

“We are basically practising for the Carlisle game at the moment. trying things out, working on the basics and trying to take what we do on the training pitch out into the game.

“It is going to be a long season, but hopefully we can take what we can from the friendlies and crack on from there.”