Colin Calderwood explains what his new role will involve at Cobblers

Calderwood, who returned to Sixfields last month, is currently working alongside manager Kevin Nolan and the rest of Town’s coaching staff in the short-term but, beyond that, his role will see him head up all of the club's footballing operations, including overseeing recruitment.

Explaining it further on BBC Radio Northampton, Calderwood said: "It's a very grand title but essentially it can be anything the club or the individual wants it to be. Certainly in the first instance, it's going to be in and around the training ground and being one of the coaches alongside Kevin to help him implement the training methods that he wants.

"Beyond that, my idea of the job is always about development of youth, recruitment of players coming in – both skill-wise and personality-wise – and to develop and help any youngster within the area and give them the best chance of playing at Football League level with this club.

"A lot of the talented boys go to Leicester or Birmingham or West Brom but we'll always be here and we want to develop that side of it and have the best practices. We need a structure and a formula to bring these players through so they can perform at League One, League Two and Championship level.”

Calderwood got struck straight into the recruitment work when he joined, helping Cobblers to strengthen their squad in the January transfer window. Liam Shaw joined early in the window followed by Terry Taylor before Dara Costelloe and Ben Perry were recruited on deadline day.

"The two boys in midfield have certainly helped us,” added Calderwood. “Dara’s one from previous because we have enquired about him before but it didn’t fall into place. Terry’s another one who was always on the radar.

"But it’s the connections that myself and Kev have and other connections through Rico (Marc Richards) and Ian Sampson as well. With Ben, Kev spoke to someone at Nottingham Forest and he wasn’t going to come out at first but then there was a chance on Monday.

"We felt we needed a little bit of thickening up and Forest were very decent in terms of the financial package. First impression in training was that we had someone slightly different who can definitely help us in some of these games coming up.

"He’ll compete and there’s no worries about his character or personality and all that came up from our scouting reports and that’s the benefit of what Alex (Latimer) has been doing over a two or three year period.”