Nolan challenges James Dadge to push for the number one spot next season

The 20-year-old, who has impressed on loan at various non-league clubs, was named on the bench ahead of Nik Tzanev for Wigan’s visit on Saturday and then had his big moment late on, replacing Lee Burge with five minutes of the 90 to play.

Burge is out of contract this summer but Nolan expects the 32-year-old to be at Sixfields next season and the onus will be on Dadge to challenge him, especially with Tzanev potentially departing. The former Wimbledon stopper took part in the warm-ups before Saturday’s game despite not being in the squad, suggesting he may be released when the retained list is announced later this week.

"Dadgey's been doing well,” said Nolan. “He's responded well to a lot of the work that I've asked Algs (James Alger, goalkeeping coach) to do with him and we spoke about it during the week about potentially putting him on.

"i wanted to see what he was like and how he reacted and how he handled the pressure because there is pressure when it's a league game. It's totally different compared to the under-21s or the under-18s.

"I was pleased to get him on and I thought he kicked really well. He had a couple of moments but all goalkeepers do and all players do, especially when they're starting out, but what I want to see now is a reaction from him.

"I want to see him get better and show an attitude to work hard and improve because he's a young goalkeeper and you don't get many of these opportunities as a young goalkeeper at this level.

"He's got to take it all on-board and then add to it and how he does that is by working hard in training and pushing himself. We'll have Burgey here next season and he's got to push Burgey as much as he can.”