League One boss 'really gutted' by Northampton's decision to sack Nolan

Bowyer’s Brewers, currently 17th in League One, visit Sixfields this weekend hoping to pull further away from the League One relegation zone. They’ll be the first team to play Cobblers since the departure of Nolan.

"First and foremost I’m really gutted for Kevin because he’s a top football person,” said Bowyer on Thursday. “I’ve loved spending time in his company whenever I’ve come across him and I know one or two people mutually who speak very highly of him. I found that as well whenever I met him.

"From the industry point of view, we all know these things happen in football. I’m disappointed for him as a person and I hope he gets back in, but in terms of the situation, we know the dynamic of it because we’ve been through it before – we had it with Exeter recently when they changed the manager. The message to the players is to focus on what we can control.

"I have a huge amount of respect for Colin Calderwood. How he’ll go on Saturday, I will only know that at 3pm. We don’t know what formation they’ll play but we’ll prepare for all outcomes and my message is to focus on ourselves. We’re a difficult team to play against and we have to stick to our values and be as competitive as we possibly can be.

"A lot has changed since the last time we played them. Their personal has changed in terms of who they brought in and who they lost in January and they’ve obviously changed their manager this week, so I’m not focused on what happened in December.”

On team news, Bowyer added: “We might have Jack Armer back. Charlie Webster is training on the grass again. He joined part of the session and we need to see how he recovers from that.”