Curle asks fans to be patient before seeing the best of Cobblers this season

Like last term, Keith Curle expects it to take 'a little bit of time' before the Cobblers - and individual players - get up to full speed and find their best form in League One this season.

Cobblers fans were hardly enamoured by their side's slow start to last season when they languished down in 18th place in League Two after 13 matches, with several players under fire for their indifferent performances.

But Curle was rewarded for his faith as the likes of Vadaine Oliver and Charlie Goode came to the fore, while January signing Callum Morton, whose arrival underwhelmed many supporters at the time, proved another superb piece of business.

Curle believes it could be a similar story this time following another busy summer with nine players having joined and a couple of key men departing, but when his side do get up to speed, he believes fans will be rewarded for their patience.

"We've got a relatively new nucleus within the changing room," he said. "The success from last season and the positives and negatives to come out of the season are behind us, it's blank canvas now.

"We're starting again and we're building a new identity with new players. It's similar to last season because it'll take a little bit of time for the supporters to get to know the new individuals that we've got and the new characteristics that they bring to the team.

"By the end of last season, I think everybody knew and everybody identified with the strengths that we had within the squad and I think they appreciated that.

"There were a few question marks at the start - what's he going to do? What's he going to bring? But by the end of the season, they knew more about the players and it was more 'he's got to be in the team, he's got to be in the team and he's also got to be in the team'.

"That was down to the identity of the players and the appreciation that they gained from the supporters by committing to and buying into what we were trying to create."