Nolan wants Cobblers to have more ambition than simply 'staying up'

Town fans sung the chant during last Friday’s 1-0 win at Mansfield, which lifted their side to 17th in League One. After the game, Nolan said: “It does my head in when the fans sing 'we are staying up'! I don't know why and I'm not having a go because they were fantastic but we've got so many games left and there's a lot of the season still to go.”

Elaborating on those comments further at Thursday’s press conference, Nolan explained: "It just makes me chuckle because there’s over a third of the league to go. It doesn’t upset me and I understand why they sing it but I’ve heard some much better chants from them.

"They’ve been fantastic since I’ve come in but I want everyone to start believing that we belong in this league now and we want to establish ourselves as a League One club. That’s what I’ve come in to do and I’m not shy in saying that.

"Obviously I want to stay up this season, that was the thing when I took over the job, but there was a long, long way to go and I don’t think we were thinking that relegation was going to happen.

"We just have to continue what we’re doing and I want to be singing joyful songs. I don't want to be talking about going down. We want to be in this league next season and I’m sure they have better songs than that one.”

Town’s League One status looked particularly precarious when they were beaten 1-0 by Lincoln on January 18th and then faced five successive games against teams in the top half at the time – Wycombe, Bolton, Huddersfield, Mansfield and Wrexham. Fom the first four of those, however, Cobblers have taken seven points and lost only once.

Nolan added: "People were looking at the games with gloom but it’s about me putting belief into the lads and helping them on the training pitch to come up with a game plan to go up against these teams and get positive results.

"We can all see the lads are growing in confidence and I feel performances are getting better each week. Clean sheets are coming regularly, which I’m really pleased about, but I still want to get better in front of goal.”