The 34-year-old shot-stopper, who won the A-League double with Sydney FC last season, is ambitious about the Heart and hopes to encourage the squad to aim high.

"Personally I expect big things from myself and my teammates around me," Bolton told Fox Sports.

"I am trying to drum that into players, that it's no good just competing for the first year, we've got to aim to achieve high success and hopefully we can do something like that."

Bolton stopped short of Clive Palmer-esque claims about going undefeated and winning the league straight up, but with a squad boasting the likes of Simon Colosimo, Josip Skoko, Michael Beauchamp and Gerald Sibon, there's plenty of reason to believe they can succeed.

Melbourne Heart will meet their first A-League opposition on Friday when they face Brisbane Roar in a pre-season game in Toowoomba.

Striker John Aloisi is hoping the trial match will provide the team with a good understanding of the standard expected in the A-League.

"In pre-season it's important to play a couple of A-League sides just to see what the competition is going to be like," he said.

"We can't take too much into it, because we know once the season's under way it's completely different but it's a good test for both sides."

Heart coach John van 't Schip added the team are still some way off being ready for their debut season.

"Everybody is well mixed with each other and you can see that there is something is growing," the Dutchman said.

"That's the most important thing because if we had to start tomorrow we would not be ready at all and we know that. But we still have six weeks to go."