Division One outfit St Patrick aim to mount a strong challenge for promotion to the Premier League this season following wholesale changes to the squad this summer.

The Division One championship gets underway in November but this month, Division One clubs will play their first matches from the KO competition, an ideal build-up to what promises to be a tough league campaign.

During the presentation of the club's new players and new coach Alfred Attard at the Fifth Avenue Confectionery this week, St Patrick FC president Charles Caruana told those present that, in a relatively short period of time earlier this summer, the club had to deal with an exodus of players but acted quickly to appoint a new coach and sign adequate replacements to boost the team's promotion bid.

"We made six signings and our new coach, Alfred Attard, has already forged a good relationship with the players," Caruana said.

"At first, we found it somewhat difficult to sort things out as pre-season training had already started when our former coach decided to leave together with some of our established players.

"But I believe we are now heading in the right direction and we can safely say that St Patrick will be among the contenders for promotion this season."

Attard has been in charge of St Patrick for around five weeks. The former Sliema Wanderers assistant coach replaced Winston Muscat who left St Patrick for Vittoriosa Stars.

Among the new arrivals at St Patrick is a Serbia U-19 international player, Daniel Milovanovic. The other newcomers are goalkeeper James Mercieca, Ryan Mifsud, David Gauci, Bronwen Bugeja and Yanis Tonna.

"Our squad was thin on numbers when I started to train St Patrick but the new signings have increased my options and so will a group of youngsters coming up from the club's nursery," Attard said.

"St Patrick have played consistently well in Division One these past few years and I think this squad is competitive enough to vie for the honours. There's fresh enthusiasm at the club and, hopefully, we can reach most of our goals."

This season, St Patrick will be sponsored by Eurosport and The Wholesaler.

The early signs are positive for St Patrick as they won four and lost narrowly to Tarxien and Msida in six pre-season friendlies.

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