Kevin Nolan focused on fitness, not results, as Cobblers start pre-season schedule at Brackley

Town have six friendlies before they open their campaign at Wigan on August 3rd, starting with a trip to Brackley this weekend followed by behind-closed-doors games against Cambridge United and Norwich City.

Cobblers will then spend a week in Spain, where they’ll play Championship side Millwall at the Real Club de Golf Campoamor complex, before signing off their pre-season schedule by hosting West Ham Under-21s and Birmingham City at Sixfields.

Supporters will be keen to see how the new-look squad is shaping up ahead of the 2025/26 League One campaign, but Nolan’s only focus is on making sure his players are physically primed and ready for the long, arduous nine months that faces them as he tries to avoid another injury crisis.

"Some of these games we've managed to arrange, the lads will be playing with fatigue,” said Nolan. “We won't be looking for a result, it's almost an extra training session to push them into places that'll need to get to throughout the season.

"We need to get through it as injury-free as we can. You can't legislate for contact injuries because those are going to happen and I want our lads to be competitive and aggressive, but I've set it out clearly to the players that I want us to be fit and we've got to be ready.

"There has to be a robustness about us. I just felt there were too many times last season when we fatigued quite easily in the last few months and we were clinging onto results. We didn't punish teams enough when we went 1-0 up.

"That's something I want to address in pre-season and the lads know that. All of the players that have joined know what to expect and they have bought into what I want to do, and the lads already here know what I'm about.

"It's really important now to get this right and we make it go the way we want it to go in terms of how we want to present ourselves, not just on matchday but throughout pre-season. The most important thing is to be ready for August 3rd."

Nolan is excited to get back to it on Saturday, adding: "This why I came back into management and these are the moments where you enjoy it. You want to be on the grass. We need to get the new lads in sync with everyone else quite quickly and we need to build a base and that all starts in pre-season.”