Hogg 'watched every game from last season' to get a better idea of Cobblers players

Hogg did not take over until the end of May, more than two weeks after Town’s disastrous campaign had ended, but he did his homework on the squad by watching plenty of footage from the 2025/26 season.

That gave him an idea of what he was walking into and how he could tailor his methods to his new players. Asked if he has a set way of playing or he had to make adjustments to suit the current squad, Hogg said: “It’s a balance of both. I watched pretty much every single game from last season so I knew what type of players we were getting when we walked into the building.

“You start thinking about how you can bring their best qualities out, and then with the recruitment process, you’re trying to align certain behaviours and certain traits to how you want it to look on the pitch.

“I think we’ve seen the development of that over the last few weeks and it’s something we will keep working at and keep improving, but there’ll also be certain tweaks as we go through.

“It relies on the players and their decision-making and ability to solve problems. As long as myself and the rest of the staff can give them everything in terms of information and solutions, it’s then their decisions because they are the ones playing the game.

“The boys did a good job in taking that on and some of the stuff we saw at the weekend against Solihull was players playing with a bit of freedom within our structures and that was a really enjoyable afternoon. We want more of that.”

Assistant manager Chris Doig added: “I watched quite a lot of games from last season so I had a pretty good idea of what we were coming into and what the players were capable of.

“Their effort and their application has been outstanding from the start of pre-season. I think both me and the gaffer are really pleased with how the squad has adapted and they’ve done really well.”