Cobblers chairman Cardoza confident boss Boothroyd will stay at Sixfields

Boothroyd’s managerial stock has risen over the past 18 months as he has dragged the Cobblers from the bottom of npower League Two to within 90 minutes of promotion to league one.

He has done a brilliant job at Sixfields that won’t have gone unnoticed by chairmen elsewhere.

But Cardoza believes ‘unfinished business’ will ensure Boothroyd wants to carry on his good work with the Cobblers, and that only the lure of a really big club would tempt him.

“Aidy is a great guy to work with, and he has taken us on leaps and bounds,” said Cardoza.

“He will feel he has unfinished business, especially after Wembley, and he will stay I am sure.

“If he doesn’t, it will be a big club and what can we do about that? That would be his decision.”

Boothroyd is already busy preparing the Cobblers squad for the new campaign which kicks off on August 3.

Last week he made seven contract offers to players, with Kelvin Langmead and Lee Collins already signing theirs.

Boothroyd is still waiting on answers from Luke Guttridge, Ben Harding, Ben Tozer, Nathan Cameron and Roy O’Donovan, but Cardoza says none of those players have, as far as he is aware, been given a deadline to sign.

“That is up to Aidy because he is the man that has to get the squad together,” said the chairman.

“It doesn’t make a big difference to me, but ideally you do want the players to make their mind up quickly so you can move on to the targets you have.

“You are talking to your targets anyway, but you know you can’t push it over the line until you know you can actually sign them.”

And will there be any leeway to increase offers to any of those players if they want more?

“What you do is set a wage bill, and then you offer what you can to each player,” said Cardoza.

“If maybe one player does accept, one doesn’t, and one maybe wants a little bit more, you can juggle it around.

“But Aidy has effectively offered players the right amount of money with the wage bill he is going to have, or at least the wage bill he has today.

“That might change over the summer, you don’t know what will happen.

“It may be that a player goes, or we get some good news, but at the minute that is where we are.”