Caley Thistle manager John Robertson is relieved he does not need to perform the same overhaul of his squad as he did last summer.
Robertson inherited a threadbare squad fresh from being relegated from the Premiership when he took over from the sacked Richie Foran last June, forcing him to hastily assemble a new-look squad by bringing in 13 new signings.
Inverness recovered from a poor start to last season to finish the campaign strongly, narrowly missing out on the play-offs following a run of seven wins from their final eight games.
Despite losing influential midfielder Iain Vigurs to rivals Ross County, Robertson is content he has the bulk of his squad in place for the forthcoming campaign, having already added Shaun Rooney, Angus Beith and Tom Walsh.
Robertson said: “We’re miles ahead of where we were last summer. We had two-and-a-half weeks to sign 13 players. We still had players who we didn’t know were staying or going.
“We had massive financial cuts for the club. We still had players feeling the hangover of relegation. The fans were obviously disappointed and for the first few games it was a difficult and vociferous support.
“There were changes in the board and a new manager coming in. We had all this to deal with so it was never going to be easy – and it wasn’t. Throwing that many together quickly was difficult, it took us time to settle.
“Teams talk about us now and say we play good football but are based on a really solid defence.”
Robertson is well aware of the restraints forced on him by a second successive campaign in the Championship, adding: “We face further cuts as teams who stay down in the Championship do. The biggest achievement this year is getting to a more sustainable level where the club can start to seek the opportunity to run it properly and not get into debt.
“That’s massive. It is easy for any board to say ‘spend, spend, spend’ but that money has to be accounted for and paid back at some stage. We’re no longer able to do that due to limited television money and limited income for playing in the Championship.”