Cobblers likely to be 'stretched' for first few weeks of the season due to injuries

Jon Brady admits Cobblers are likely to be ‘a bit stretched’ for the start of the new League One season due to the injury situation.

Town had 10 players absent for the final few weeks of last season, including captain Jon Guthrie and second-in-command Aaron McGowan. Both men have been pictured on the grass running at the club’s training base in Scotland this week.

Ben Fox, Akin Odimayo, Ali Koiki and Jack Sowerby have also been doing some light work with the squad at St Andrews, but Tyler Magloire remains on crutches and won’t return until 2024, while it’s been revealed that striker Danny Hylton faces several months out.

With those two missing, and with several of the others still short of returning to full training, Town are set to be hamstrung for the first few weeks of the 2023/24 campaign.

"The injury situation has obviously altered our plans for pre-season,” said Brady. “We’re starting our game schedule a lot later due to all the injuries.

"There’s currently two who won’t be with us until after the season starts. Tyler will be a lot later, we’re looking after Christmas, and then Danny Hylton will probably be a few months into the season.

"Everybody else is out on the grass at the moment. That group haven’t really touched the ball yet but integrating them in will be really important over the next few weeks. We’ll have to drip feed some of them into matches right at the end of pre-season.

"We could be a bit stretched at the start of the season in terms of the playing group and the injuries but what’s important is how we bring them back into the rest of the group because we need to make sure they’re ready.”