Luke brings a touch of class to Cobblers
I was surprised to see Luke Guttridge return to Northampton – but it’s a great signing for the club.
You can pretty much guarantee a bit of quality with Luke, you know what you’re going to get when he’s on the ball.
And having seen the game from Saturday, you can see he gets into really good positions in midfield and he’ll be an asset to the club.
He’s certainly got ability and he brings lots of other things to the squad... not all good, but not all bad.
The good things can outweigh the bad things and he’s a quality signing.
He’s something Northampton need at the moment. He’s got good experience and all in all he’s a decent capture.
It looks like Aidy Boothroyd is going down the experienced route with his signings from now on, and that’s not a bad thing.
You see the likes of Torquay and a lot of their players are settled league one and league two players.
And that says a lot.
Looking back to when Guttridge left Northampton, if the budget hadn’t been cut by £300,000 he wouldn’t have left.
Unfortunately it was an easy decision for me.
It was a two-minute negotiation for me to say ‘Luke, I’m not keeping you’.
But if I hadn’t of had to cut that much from the budget, I would have kept him. Likewise with Adebayo Akinfenwa.
But it wasn’t to be, they moved on to pastures new and obviously they’ve now found their way back to Northampton.
Hopefully they can produce the goods they did during their first spell together.
Luke is one of those players who can get right up your nose.
Up the opposition’s nose, or the manager’s nose.
He’s quite a funny little character so hopefully his personality will rub off in the right way and he’ll produce some wins.
We keep talking about leaders all the time and they’re just so hard to get. So it’s no surprise to me that Aidy is now trying to bring experienced players in.
They have got a little bit of know-how and a little bit of devilment in them and Luke won’t stand for any nonsense from anyone, he’ll argue his corner and stand his ground.
That’s what they need at the moment, as long as it’s done in the right way. You don’t want it to be to the detriment of the team, you want it to be a gee-up to the team.
Luke won’t want to be at a team that goes out of the League. He’s signed an 18-month deal and he won’t want to be playing in the Conference. I can see why Aidy has been bringing a few familiar faces back to Sixfields in recent weeks.
Just because it’s a former player, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the wrong player, because he’s got good experience.
Whether they can play to the same standard as they were before, time will tell.
Guttridge has continued to play in league two for years so I don’t see it being a problem having him back.
David Cardoza is in a bit of a catch-22 position at the moment.
The Northampton chairman is probably getting advice from lots of different people.
Fans in particular will be saying ‘spend some more money to get out of trouble’ but Cardoza has chucked money at it for the past 10 weeks and it’s not worked, so sometimes you have to say’ enough’s enough’.
You have to trust the manager’s ability to manage and the coaches’ ability to coach.
Sometimes the management team have to say ‘hold on a minute, we’ve got 30 players, we’re coaches and we’ve got to get on and do the job’.
The most successful teams in the league use 22, 23 players and there’s plenty of harmony in there.
Decent teams gel their squad together and get a good team spirit. They trust the manager and give him time to get it right.
The teams that are coming up in the next three games are those in and around Northampton. Consequently, they are must-win games. I know Aidy tried to play the Barnet match down, saying it wasn’t a must-win game, but the games are running out now.
They need to start getting some wins. Macclesfield will be a tough, tough game on Saturday and so will Dagenham a week later.
Those sides are going to be scrapping and the easiest game coming up might be the one against AFC Wimbledon.
Not because they are an ex-non-League team, but because they’ve had a little run and in their minds they might just think they are a little safer than what they are.
They might just take their foot off the gas and it might be an easier game than the next two. It’s an old cliche but on paper, you’d expect Northampton to pick points up.
However, it just doesn’t work like that and at the moment Northampton aren’t beating anyone. That needs to change quickly because they are the wrong side of the line at the moment.
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