TWO impressive draws against Premier League teams, and a thumping win over an MLS team in the middle of their season who picked a strong team.

Those are the headlines from the Wrex Coast Tour and they make very pleasing reading.

To play with such confidence, taking the lead against both AFC Bournemouth and Chelsea, and nearly hanging onto that lead against the latter in Enzo Maresca’s first game as The Blues’ manager, before thumping Vancouver Whitecaps, is a very good week and a half’s work

I know they’re not real games. Friendlies count for nothing. To my eyes, a successful pre-season can only be measured in one way: how prepared a squad is for the start of the season.

Going into our final preparatory match we look in very good shape. That’s because we learned valuable lessons from last year’s tour of the States.

Our maiden trip over the Atlantic was a massive success in terms of the over-riding mission to spread the Wrexham word, but not in football terms.

We might have walloped a Manchester United youth team and showed well in the other friendlies, but we started the campaign poorly.

If we’d hit the ground running, we’d surely have won the title.

In all competitions, we only won one of our first five home games, conceding five goals twice and 13 in total.

Considering that we went on to register our third most home wins in a league season despite this slow start, not to mention the most home wins in an EFL season since 1970, I think it’s fair to suggest we weren’t up to speed at the start of the campaign.

To put it another way, we won four points from our first three league home games, conceding 12, then dropped just 10 more home points in 20 games. We conceded 12 goals in those opening three games, then 13 in the remaining 20!

See what I mean about being undercooked?

I hasten to add, I’m not criticising the idea of going abroad for a pre-season tour.

Quite the contrary. If we are to continue this remarkable journey up the EFL, we must double down on the owners’ plan to expand our reputation.

They have been unbelievably successful at doing this. Ever since the 1990s football has talked about expanding into international markets, dreaming of the revenue raised by selling shirts in Singapore.

While most have remained dreaming, Rob and Ryan have come in and done it, despite buying a club with no international profile. Continuing to give our international fans a chance to see the team, and enlist others, is crucial to our continued development.

I’ve no doubt that every measure was taken to ensure the travel we underwent last summer didn’t adversely affect the players’ ability to perform. Indeed, elaborate and expensive measures were taken to back up the high level sports science we applied.

The problem, which has been addressed this year, was a matter of timing.

There was no real gap between returning from the USA and the start of the season last year. I’m not saying that all pre-seasons need to end locally: the problem was a lack of matches.

There were issues, especially at the back, which needed addressing at the start of the season and we had to make our adjustments the hard way, in competitive games. Naturally, there were bumps along the road.

This year, we’ve time to get our feet onto familiar turf, playing a friendly against Fleetwood which acts as a bookend to the game in Hanley before we jetted off.

Once again we’ll go into the start of the season with our main goal scorer absent, as Paul Mullin has had an operation which will hopefully mean he won’t have to constantly drag himself through the pain barrier, as he did so remarkably last season.

However, a total of 12 goals in our four pre-season games so far suggests our attacking game is coming together well. Jack Marriott’s terrific goal against Chelsea was particularly gratifying.

If we don’t bring in another striker, Marriott will surely start the season up front, with a chance to show what he can offer having made a series of bright appearances off the bench in the run-in last season.

Of course, you never know until the real action begins, but by looking critically at last season’s preparations, hopefully we’ve insured ourselves against another slow start.

After all, we don’t want to throw away another league title, do we?