'He's everything you want as a manager' - Kevin Nolan full of praise for Max Dyche

The 22-year-old defender was recalled from his loan spell at Woking earlier this month and received his first opportunity to impress Nolan when starting at Bolton Wanderers in Tuesday.

Whilst Cobblers conceded three goals, Dyche played well and made several important interventions to keep his side level in the first half before Liam Shaw’s unfortunate own goal and Aaron Collins’ late third secured victory for the hosts.

"I thought Max was great,” said Nolan. “I was delighted with him. He’s everything you want when you come in as manager. He trains hard, he works hard and he wants to do well and he’s got a great attitude towards the game.

"He wants to learn and he wants to be better and we’ll go through everything with him and he’ll do his pieces in terms of the analysis and all that later in the week. I thought he stepped in and did well.

"It’s unfortunate we conceded three goals because he defended really well and he did everything else you’d want. You might look at it and think ‘is it because of that?’ but no, there were other things which worked against us.”

Experienced centre-back Jack Baldwin, who came on for the final few minutes, was also impressed, adding: “Dychey was excellent tonight. As a centre-half you’re always going to be disappointed when you concede three goals but he’s got a lot to be positive about.

"He’s a great professional and it’s really refreshing to see as a young lad because there’s not too many youngsters that really throw themselves into the game these days but he’s definitely one and he deserved his chance and I thought he did excellently.”