Kevin Nolan looking for 'cleaner performance' from Cobblers against Birmingham City

Town have not won any of their five friendlies so far, most recently drawing 0-0 with West Ham United Under-21s on Tuesday, but Nolan is pleased with his side’s progress and hopes to see further improvement against the Championship-bound Blues at Sixfields on Saturday.

"We'd like a cleaner performance in terms of how we keep the ball and our work out of possession,” said Nolan. “There are little moments that we need to get right because I felt we were a bit off it on Tuesday.

"But this week is the first time we've started working on those little things on the training ground. We've showed them visually from the start of pre-season but sometimes it takes that little bit of confidence when they hear it from you on the training ground.

"Now we're coming off them, and not putting them through the mire as much, hopefully we will see the benefits of everything we have done over the last five weeks and they'll be fresh and in a good place and ready to go for the season. I've been impressed with how the lads take information on and this next game is really important and then it's a big week to work on Wigan and how we're going to attack them.”

Whilst the focus has started to shift towards tactical work this week, increasing his squad’s fitness levels remains the number one priority for Nolan in pre-season.

"I'm happy with where the fitness levels are at,” he added. “You know they probably won't be proper match ready because you can't replicate league games, but we've tried to do that as much as we can through hard work and playing them through fatigue, which we've done for the last four or five games.

"The players keep telling me it's the hardest pre-season they've done. It was all thought out and it will be throughout the season. We've planned it with the strength and conditioning department so that it all matches up and hopefully we'll see that pay off. We want to be as fit as we can so we're able to last 90 minutes and we can keep going and then go again.

"The fitter you are, the clearer you are in your mind because it's not as mentally tough on the pitch. You feel good and you feel fresh and hopefully that will help with decision-making in the last few minutes of games.”