Hogg lays down the challenge to Cobblers ahead of Leicester City opener
Having made steady progress in pre-season, Chris Hogg says the challenge now for Cobblers is to perform when the pressure is on - starting against Leicester City in the Carabao Cup this weekend.
Town lost to Leicester and Birmingham in pre-season but drew with Premier League Coventry City and League One Cambridge, and beat National League duo Southend and Solihull Moors.
"Pre-season has gone really quickly,” admitted Hogg. “I feel like I've been here a long time but it's only been nine or 10 weeks. I've really enjoyed it and I've loved coming to work with the players and the staff.
"We're trying to mould things and identify gaps where we can be better and I think you've seen good progression over pre-season, but the challenge for all of us is - can you do it when the pressure is on? Can you do it when crowds are in and things really matter with three points on the line? That's what I'm looking forward to.
"We have spoken a lot around game management and how you deal with certain moments within games. We will be putting that to the test when the league campaign starts and I'm really looking forward to it.”
The first test will come at the King Power on Saturday when Cobblers face Leicester City in the first round of the Carabao Cup.
"It's a great game for us before we start our league campaign,” Hogg added. “We'll almost class it as a seventh pre-season game but we want to go there and give the best account of ourselves as we can and try to get something from the game.
"It's about us. Leicester will be a very good footballing team, I know Russell Martin and his staff, and you know how they will play, they will want the ball, so we'll have to be really good without the ball.
"I'm looking for progress with the ball and I think you’ve seen that from where we are against Leicester in that first friendly to where we were against Solihull. Now the boys can go and test themselves against top quality opposition and having a real good go.”