Brady increasingly exasperated by Cobblers' ongoing unavailability issues

Manager Jon Brady could not help but express his mounting exasperation at Cobblers’ unrelenting unavailability issues after seven players missed Tuesday’s 2-2 draw with Sutton United at Sixfields.

Danny Hylton served the first of his three-game suspension in midweek while Sam Sherring and Ali Koiki were the latest to join the treatment room from the weekend’s win at Stevenage. Tyler Magloire, Josh Eppiah, Ben Fox and Jonny Maxted are also missing for various reasons.

Brady said: "We haven't used it as an excuse but we have seven out and it is taking its toll because it was a heavy game on Saturday and you need to make changes but aren’t able to.

"We lost Hylts, we lost Sam and we lost Ali from the weekend and in anyone's book those are three strong players who will be missed. We hope to get some players back for the weekend but we'll see."

Brady’s problems are exacerbated by the fact that he is having to manage players who have just come back into the squad following injury. They include Shaun McWilliams, Akin Odimayo, Sam Hoskins and Aaron McGowan.

Tiredness may well have played a part when McWilliams made an error that led to Sutton’s equaliser in midweek. Hoskins and McGowan both returned from injury to come on as late substitutes.

Brady added: "There are some players playing more minutes than they really should be at the moment and we are trying to manage other players as well because they are coming back from injury and you can't just play them.

"It feels like there are constraints. It’s frustrating because you want to play players longer but I think it took its toll against Sutton.

"You are trying to manage minutes and get players back into the fold when you can. Shaun has just come back and he probably shouldn't have played 90 on Saturday so I hard to be careful with him.

"AK also had no right to play 90 on Tuesday so it's juggling those balls at the minute. It's tough and it's a bit of a conundrum."