Jon Brady explains why Cobblers' pre-season schedule will look different

Cobblers’ pre-season schedule ahead of their 2023/24 League One campaign is set to start later than normal due to the unusually high number of injured players within Jon Brady’s squad.

Town ordinarily start pre-season with a friendly against a local side on the first or second weekend of July, but this time it might not be until July 15th, when Leicester City visit Sixfields, that Cobblers get things up and running.

Friendlies against Brimingham (July 19th), Brackley (July 22nd) and MK Dons (July 29th) have also been announced, with potentially one more on the way.

Cobblers ended last season with 10 players injured but all of them – bar Tyler Magloire – should return either before or during pre-season. The new season starts on August 5th, with the fixtures to be announced on Thursday.

"The schedule is looking good but I’m just deciding whether to go another game or two,” said Brady. “We have to align it with all our injuries and the timings of the players who will be coming back.

"We’ll have some more dicussions about that because it’s not as easy as it seems from the outside. We’ve got to make sure that the players from last season come back fit and we don’t stress them too early.

"We need to ensure we ease them back in and they are right and ready to go so there are lots of things to consider, but potentially there could be another game or two.”