Brady assesses Cobblers' pre-season so far and looks ahead to 'very important' Scotland trip

Jon Brady has explained what he’s hoping to get out of next week’s trip to Scotland.

Cobblers will be based at the University of St Andrews for five days from Monday and are scheduled to play two friendlies behind closed doors, one of which will be against Celtic U23s. The club embarked on a similar outing last summer when they went to Rutland for an army camp.

"We want the group to bond and bring everyone together,” said Brady. “That’s very important.

"It’s not just football. It’s about things in general because you find more out about your players which we feel is really important. That was good value for us last year and we hope it will be the same this time.

"We are also playing two games while we are up there and that gives us a chance to embed our philosophy and how we want to play.”

Cobblers host Championship clubs Luton Town and West Brom on their return to Sixfields the following week before signing off pre-season with a trip to League One Cheltenham.

A Northampton XI will also play Rushden & Diamonds.

"We have chosen the pre-season games for a reason,” Brady added. “There will certainly be some games where we are going to have to work a lot harder out of possession.

"But when you are playing the West Broms and the Lutons, you will need to be better on the ball as well to try and control the game.

"These things are done for a reason but they will be great tests for us and great games for our fans to come down to have a look at us and have a look at players from Championship level as well.”

The players were back for pre-season testing last week and have been training at Moulton in the past few days. The new season is set to kick-off against Colchester United on July 30.

"Pre-season has gone well so far,” Brady continued. “We have done some early testing and for the last few days we have been on the grass and it’s going well.

"It’s condensed this year with the World Cup and that has put extra importance on things. It’s probably made managers feel that they don’t have as much time as usual.

"It’s a quick turnaround to start on July 30 and it’s been a bit non-stop in the off-season so far but we won’t be playing as many midweek games during the season so that’s the trade-off.”