Brady explains the steps Cobblers have taken to minimise injury problems

Cobblers boss Jon Brady has outlined the measures the club have taken in an attempt to avoid a repeat of last season’s nightmarish injury problems.

Town were missing five or six players virtually every week for the first half of the 2022/23 campaign, and things only deteriorated from there with 10, 11 and sometimes even 12 players absent in the final few months of the season. Only in the last couple of weeks have the likes of Jon Guthrie, Aaron McGowan, Jack Sowerby and Ali Koiki rejoined full training.

It became a regular topic of conversation, both in the media and between club staff, and steps have been taken in the summer to hopefully get to the bottom of the problems before Town kick-off their League One campaign.

"We’ve done a lot of work between all of the staff,” Brady told the Cobblers Show on BBC Radio Northampton this week. “We had some initial talks three or four weeks before the start of pre-season in terms of how we were going to tackle it.

"Michael (Bolger) delivered an overview on hamstring injuries in terms of our hamstring injuries and also hamstring injuries across the board, and he spoke about what we need to do to be better.

“We always try and find the best way, whether it’s medical or whether it’s coaching. Some of it last season was a bit out of our control because players turned up to us late and they were unconditioned and we caught a couple of injuries in pre-season. They then came in and played and it became self-perpetuating. That was tough and then you get your impact injuries that you just can’t help.

"It’s the muscle injuries that we need to reduce and that’s what we’re addressing. Joe Power (S&C assistant) is doing more on the grass and Ash (Adebayo) has gone with physical development, and the club has given us room for extra staffing and by September we will have another physio to help Michael. Joe’s also full-time with us now which is brilliant.

"Ash is going to rehab the guys who are coming back onto the grass individually and a lot of our programming will be specific to individuals and attuned to their individual positions. We've put a lot of time and effort into it and we’ve gone really in-depth so hopefully it’ll make a big difference.

"We are trying to play the longer game. We want to get off to a strong start as well so it’s trying to balance everything and hopefully we’ll navigate our way through it.”