Cobblers 'quite far down the line' with transfer targets as Kevin Nolan looks to strengthen squad before Wigan Athletic opener

Defender Michael Forbes was the most recent summer recruit to be confirmed when he joined on loan last week, but the focus now is very much on bolstering the forward line. Nolan said he was hopeful of further additions this week when asked after Saturday’s final pre-season friendly against Birmingham, and whilst nothing has yet materialised, the club remain in discussions with a number of targets.

"We’d be delighted to get one or two in before Saturday, certainly one, and we feel that is achievable,” confirmed Nolan on Tuesday. “But these things take time, especially when you get to this stage of the window, and as I’ve said before, we haven’t been helped by the fact that the Championship and Premier League start after us. I think you’ll see a lot of activity in League One and League Two in the next few weeks because things will start filtering down.”

If the club do sign a player in time for Saturday’s trip up to the north west, they would need to be assessed before being selected in the squad to face Wigan.

"We have to be really careful with any player that comes in late but we’ll have all their data and we’ve been monitoring a lot of our targets anyway,” Nolan added. “We’re quite far down the line with a couple and we’re just starting with other players because they’ve started to become available and we need to see if they would like to come to Northampton.

"One thing I will say is that Kelvin (Thomas), the owners, James (Whiting), Alex (Latimer) and Colin (Calderwood) have all worked really hard to make the process as easy as possible and I think we’ve done a terrific job to get the ones we already have over the line. I’m certainly hoping we will add to that in the next week or two and we’ll see a few new faces through the door.”