New-look Cobblers squad will need time to gel - Nolan
Kevin Nolan predicts it will take ‘a bit of time’ for his drastically revamped squad to click, although he still expects them to perform better than they did in Saturday’s opening day defeat at Wigan.
Nolan handed out 10 debuts in total on Saturday, including eight starters, as only three players – Lee Burge, Max Dyche and Cameron McGeehan – who featured in the final game of last season (also against Wigan) made the squad.
"It's been a big turnaround,” said Nolan. “Of course it's going to take a bit of time. Michael Forbes has only been with us for a week, Ethan (Wheatley) has only been in a couple of days.
"In five weeks you're trying to cram in a lot. Last season's squad knew what we wanted but we chose to make changes and that's the road we've gone down. It's not an excuse because the lads have shown me in training that they can do it – now they need to show it on the pitch.
"We had a lot of youngsters in the team today and a few players who haven't even played in the league before so sometimes you're going to get these mixed performances. Unfortunately there were too many below-par today but I'm sure we will get a positive reaction going into the Bradford game.”
It did not help that Nolan’s half-time message immediately went out of the window with Wigan scoring their third 10 seconds after the restart.
He added: "The biggest thing I said at half-time was not to concede again and then 10 seconds later the ball's in the back of our net! But I know these lads will give their all and it was unfortunate because we had a fantastic chance at 3-1.
"If you get it back to 3-2, everyone gets a bit jittery. You can't think you're out of the game at 2-0 or even 3-0. I've been there as a player and I told the lads they were still in it and to keep believing and to keep doing the right things and they did that.”