NEW Wanderers Ladies boss Chris Knights hopes a more professional outlook at the club can help them ‘go places’ this season.

The former Accrington Stanley coach is looking forward to life in the Premier League following promotion and has wasted no time laying down the ground rules to his new squad.

Training sessions have been doubled and with the club due to play home games in front of bigger crowds at Atherton Collieries this year, Knights believes the team will face new challenges at a higher level of football.

“I’d like to bring in a bit more professionalism from what they have been used to – and I don’t mean disrespect to anyone else,” he said.

“Being at Accrington Stanley especially I was involved with some great coaches, people like Duncan Fernhead and Dave Bailey, and I really did learn a lot from them.

“It will be very different for them playing at Atherton Colls and we are looking at getting decent crowds there, getting people to cheer them on.”

Knights has been in coaching for the last 14 years and is hoping to build some firm foundations after last season’s double.

“It’s huge at the moment, it’s a great time to get into it,” he said.

“It’s really exciting and I honestly believe Bolton Wanderers Ladies can go somewhere, I really do.”

Open trials are being held tonight at Little Lever Sports Centre (7.30pm) for open age footballers – and club captain Katie Miller reckons the pool of talent has expanded considerably after last season’s exposure.

“All the media attention has got us new girls before we’ve even had trials this season, It has blown up, it’s massive, we are a big team at the moment and getting promotion is going to help us get better players,” she said.

“We know it’s going to be a great season just working with Chris already, we know his goals and what he wants to achieve.

“We’re not going into that league thinking we’ll get promotion straight away. We know what are goals are next season and if we do any better than that it’s a bonus.

“Already the effort and the commitment the girls are putting in, I don’t see why we can’t push on in that league.”

For Liverpudlian Miller - nicknamed “Scouse” by her team-mates, the attention currently being lavished on the women’s team has been a long time coming.

She joined Bolton as a 15-year-old “playing on park pitches” but has seen gradual improvement over the last couple of years as Wanderers finished second, then first in the North West Regional League.

Next season they will be taking on the likes of Newcastle United, Leeds, Hull City and Barnsley in the Women’s Premier League Division One North, and travelling to Leicester in the WPL Cup.

“With hitting 30 I thought the dream had passed of getting promoted,” Miller told the club, recalling last season’s double.

“But we got that last year and we’ve got an amazing team, it’s one of the best I’ve ever been part of.

“For me it was a case of ‘now or never’ because I knew time was running out. To have achieved all that was massive.

“We had girls at 16 in the team, so to come in and win two trophies was amazing.”

Wanderers Ladies welcomed the GB Olympic Women’s deaf football squad for a training match on Saturday as they prepare for the upcoming games in Turkey.

The Whites’ team was made up from reserves and youth team players, who will also be playing at open age regional level this season.