Nolan baffled and frustrated by 'incredibly bad decision' from EFL that will hurt all League One clubs in the transfer market

Unlike in previous years, when all three EFL leagues have started on the same weekend, a week prior to the top flight, next season's League One and League Two will kick-off on Saturday, August 2nd, followed by the Championship on August 9th and the Premier League another seven days later.

That seems likely to cause significant disruption for all tier three and four clubs who will still be assembling their squads as new the campaign starts, with many relying on loans from the top two divisions. Nolan himself hopes to attract young talent from the Premier League this summer but he may have to wait longer than he’d like.

Speaking on the Cobblers Show on BBC Radio Northampton, Nolan said: "The problem is that the EFL have decided to start our season a week earlier than the Championship. That’s a really poor decision because it means the Premier League don’t come back for pre-season until two weeks after us and we probably won’t get any Premier League players until the third or fourth week into the season.

"What we’ll have to do is go and beg them and try and get them as early as possible, but what normally happens is international players will miss the first week and then they don’t come in until late and by the time it all happens, we’ll be three or four weeks into our training.

"The clubs then have a decision to make on who to send their players to and they’ll be looking at Championship clubs first. We’ll make it clear that if they come to us, they’ll have a great opportunity to play and improve and we’ve got to show them that we have a pathway.

"But if we can’t get them early, it’ll be a cat and mouse game and we’ll have to wait on a manager of a Premier League club. This is where the EFL have got it totally wrong and it’ll be really tough on League One and League Two clubs especially.

"I’ve been there as a coach at West Ham when you’re trying to send players out on loan, so I know it doesn’t work for the Premier League clubs and it doesn’t work for the players themselves. Even the Championship start a week after us so we’ll have to wait if we want to get a Championship player on loan. It’s an incredibly bad decision by the EFL because it impacts everyone down the ladder.”