Jon Brady explains how and when Wright-Phillips and Yengi came onto his radar - and why they joined Cobblers so late on 'nail-biting' deadline day

Tete Yengi and D’Margio Wright-Phillips may have joined Cobblers in the final few hours of a ‘nail-biting’ deadline day but both men had been on Jon Brady’s radar long before the January transfer window opened.

Yengi sealed his loan switch from Ipswich Town on Tuesday afternoon, several months after Brady first became aware of him. The 22-year-old striker has joined for the rest of the season after impressing in Finland.

"The link with Tete came two or three months ago when I spoke to one of the coaching staff who I know very well at Ipswich and then we started to track him and watch a couple of his games in Finland,” Brady explained.

"Thereafter, we watched a lot of his stuff, we put some stats together and we feel he matches up very well with how we play. Obviously he's an unknown to many people but we have tracked him for quite a while.”

It was a similar story with Wright-Phillips. Cobblers had been one of several clubs tracking the 21-year-old attacker due to his lack of game-time at Stoke City this season, but a loan deal was in the balance and nearly didn’t happen at all.

However, the club held their nerve and were rewarded when Stoke finally allowed him to leave in the final hour of the window.

Brady added: "With D'Margio, he's been on our radar for probably four or five months and we knew about a month and a half ago that there was maybe potential that he could go out on loan if he didn't get enough game-time.

"There were some League One clubs interested as well so we kept that level of contact and then you have the Zoom calls with them and speak to them.

"As to why it happened so late, that was because he is so well thought of by Stoke and they wanted to get one or two in before he was able to come out.

"It was nail-biting but we were prepared to wait for him because we felt he had the qualities to really add to us and as staff, from James Whiting to everyone else involved, we were all ready to either wait or go without.

"I'm glad we did wait in the end but it was very close!”