Brady admits he's facing some serious selection headaches ahead of Colchester United trip

Jon Brady admits he is facing some serious selection headaches for this weekend's Sky Bet League Two fixture at Colchester United.

The Cobblers followed their opening-day win over Port Vale with an excellent victory at Coventry City in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday.

Brady made eight changes for that game and several of those players who came into the team impressed, including Kion Etete, Scott Pollock, Shaun McWilliams, Sam Hoskins, Danny Rose and Ali Koiki.

That has left Town's management team with some big decisions to make ahead of Saturday's trip to Essex.

"You've got to welcome these selection issues because I didn't really have that during the first part of my tenure when I took over in February through to May," said Brady. "But now they're great problems to have - bring it on!

"We have said it all along - Marc (Richards), Martin Foyle and myself worked tirelessly in the off-season to bring in a squad so that we had two for every position and the players are pushing each other.

"It makes for healthy competition and to make eight changes, it shows the strength in depth we have and long may that continue. Competition within the group pushes the group and we feel that's healthy."

As impressive as the Cobblers were at the Ricoh Arena on Wednesday, they face a completely different challenge on Saturday.

"It was just another step towards where we need to go," Brady added. "But we need to keep working hard because it'll be a massive challenge at Colchester - it'll be a totally different game.

"It was a lot more open and there was a lot more space against Coventry but it'll be a tough fight down there at Colchester so we won't be getting carried away. We have a lot of work to do and we've got to recover well as well."