Jon Brady confirms Cobblers will again target young, up-and-coming players in the transfer market this summer

Jon Brady has confirmed that Cobblers will again place an emphasis on targeting young, up-and-coming players when they begin the task of strengthening their squad for League One football this summer.

Brady and his recruitment team made a conscious decision last summer, supported by chairman Kelvin Thomas, to recruit players on the way up in their careers. Five players aged 24 or under – Sam Sherring, Harvey Lintott, Tyler Magloire, Akin Odimayo and Ben Fox – were signed on permanent deals, with Will Hondermarck following in January, while 21-year-old Marc Leonard and 20-year-old Kieron Bowie, who would go on to make 88 appearances between them in 2022/23, joined on season-long loans.

Given Town’s success over the past 12 months, Brady sees no reason to change tack this summer irrespective of the fact that they will be stepping up a level and going into a very competitive division next season.

"We certainly want plays who are on the way up in their careers and not on the way down,” confirmed Brady. "We will look at the way we have done things previously and again put the focus on recruiting on power, pace and athleticism, which will be especially important for League One.

"We want to be brave. There was a stat published recently about the fact that we have given the third most minutes to players aged under 22 in the whole of League Two this season. We're really proud of that achievement as a club.

"All of us at the club are on the same page in terms of targeting young players who are on the way up. The chairman has supported me on that and we are going to stick to that if we can."

Another decision Brady took last summer was to go into the season with a relatively small squad, but a catalogue of injury problems forced Cobblers to add seven players over the course of the campaign, including three free agents.

"I would like to have more depth next season but what we did last summer was that we went out there and we signed the best players that we could,” Brady added. "By doing that, it meant we had to go a bit smaller in terms of the size of the squad.

"Who knows how it will pan out over the next six or seven weeks. Ultimately, I would want more depth because you saw that in the Papa John's Trophy and in the Carabao Cup last season, we had to be very careful in who we played.

"It would be great to have more depth but we have to see how things play out over the summer and first and foremost, the league is going to be our priority and that will be out bread and butter.”