REJUVENATED Derby will offer the ideal Valley Parade dress rehearsal for City’s new recruits, according to Mark Hughes.

The Bantams today play the first of two home friendlies and Hughes sees it as a valuable taster for his squad of what to expect in three weeks’ time.

The visitors are set to bring around 1,700 fans to significantly swell the crowd number for a pre-season outing.

And that audience will give City’s summer signings a glimpse of what Valley Parade will be like for League Two’s opening day against Doncaster on July 30.

Hughes said: “There will be a number of players who haven’t played at Valley Parade in a Bradford shirt.

“It will be a first experience for them and I’m sure they will enjoy it.

“It won’t quite reflect the crowd that will be there against Doncaster on the first game of the season. But it will give them an indication of where it’s likely to be at.”

Derby, currently under the caretaker charge of Liam Rosenior following Wayne Rooney’s recent departure, are building up to their first year in third-tier football since 1986.

But the club’s future was secured last week after nine months in administration when they were bought by Clowes Developments, led by lifelong supporter David Clowes.

That has triggered a glut of signings with Derby snapping up David McGoldrick, Conor Hourihane, Nathaniel Mendez-Laing, Tom Barkhuizen, James Chester and Joe Wildsmith.

More are expected in time for the big kick-off as they continue to make up for lost time.

Hughes added: “They are in a different situation now so there’s a lot more positivity around the club.

“Clearly, that’s reflected by the amount of people who want to show their support for their team.

“That’s good because you don’t want an empty stadium for a pre-season game.

“You want a little bit of atmosphere and I’m sure that will be created not only by Derby fans but I’m sure by ours.”

After City’s busy window, the situation has calmed down while the squad have been away on their training camp in Spain. But Hughes is still anticipating some departures to trim down numbers.

He said: “There are conversations going on club to club and things will happen.

“That’s a given because of the numbers we’ve got and the natural progression of pre-season.

“There will be differences to the squad between now and when we play the first game or even to the end of the window. That’s always the case.”

Hughes switched the entire team round at half-time in last week’s trip to Bradford (Park Avenue). But he will look to increase the amount of gametime over the next couple of pre-season outings.

“Some will have more minutes than before. It could be a 60/30 split and then we’ll reverse it for the next friendly we’ve got.

“It’s all about building minutes into the players and making sure everyone has got a good volume of work going into the first game and the opening weeks of the season.”