Lincoln City boss hails 'outstanding' Jon Brady and backs Cobblers to succeed in League One

Lincoln City manager Mark Kennedy believes Northampton have the potential to become an established League One club after praising Jon Brady for doing an ‘incredible’ job at Sixfields ahead of Tuesday’s meeting.

The Imps, who are playing at this level for the fourth successive season, started the campaign by losing to early pacesetters Bolton Wanderers before claiming an impressive 3-0 victory over Wycombe Wanderers at the weekend. The Cobblers have lost to Stevenage and Wigan but showed signs of encouragement in both games.

"They’ve been up and down and back up again but they are a club with momentum and I think they’re on an upward trajectory,” said Kennedy, who took charge last summer.

"They have an outstanding manager who’s done an incredible job and they’re a really well supported club. Northampton are a big club and they might have looked at someone like us because we’ve come up to League One and I’d like to think we’ve established ourselves as a good League One club.

"Northampton have the potential to be a really good League One club, but I do think there is a big gap between all of the leagues and the problem with League One is that there are so many top teams and huge clubs in it.

"There must be 12, 13 chairman every season who are aiming to get promoted but only three go up. The gap in the middle section of the league is really close and a lot of clubs have spent well.”

On Tuesday’s game, Kennedy added: "We will always pick a team to try and win the game and it’s no different for Tuesday. We’ll select the strongest team available to go and win. That might mean several changes, it might mean none.

"We’ll always respect the competition and the opposition and this game is no different.”