Sutton United may have hosted League One Leyton Orient on Wednesday night, but boss Paul Doswell reckoned the biggest game of pre-season is yet to come.
United host Eastleigh at Gander Green Lane on Saturday in a match-up that will see Doswell face his former club in the lead up to the new Blue Square South campaign.
The Spitfires, under new ownership, have flexed their muscles in the transfer market this summer in securing the services of Woking pair Moses Ademola and Dale Binns - not to mention experienced former Crawley Town man Craig McAllister and ex-Brentford winger Marvin Williams.
Doswell has Ian Baird's men down as favourites to lift the Blue Square South title and believed Saturday's clash is more relevant than any other pre-season friendly.
"I know Eastleigh well and they are spending big money. It will be like playing a League Two club," he said.
"You only have to look at the sort of players they are bringing and the money they are on to realise the threat they will be this season. Some of them are on more than £1,000 a week.
"We can't compete with that financially, but we can compete in other ways and that is what we have tried to do with our training arrangements.
"This game is bigger and more important than Leyton Orient from that point of view and I think it is going to be the most interesting of our pre-season fixtures."
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