Patrick Brough interview: Cobblers left-back opens up on life at Sixfields and how much fun he's having playing in Jon Brady's team

But such have been Cobblers’ struggles in League One since the turn of the century, their fans would love nothing more than to be able to enjoy the safe confines of mid-table for the next four months. And after four wins in five, Town currently have a 10-point buffer over the bottom four and an opportunity to increase that awaits at lowly Carlisle this weekend.

"It’s a happy camp at the moment,” said left-back Patrick Brough. “It just goes to show how quickly things can change in football because it wasn’t so long ago when we were well beaten by Derby.

"It can be difficult to keep that perspective. We always talk about never getting too high and never being too low but it's easier said than done. You do feel down when you lose and it's easy to get too excited after a good win but you just have to take each game as it comes and to be in the top half is brilliant.”

Brough was the first signing through the door in the summer and having played against the Cobblers twice for Barrow last season, he was always confident that his new team would do well at this level.

"I knew we had a good team,” he added. “I had played against them enough and they did really well last season and I knew coming into League One we had the players capable of doing well.

"Coming into a new league, you've got to get going and build some confidence. People try and write you off, some did that to us at the start of the season, but we've shown that we can compete against the best teams at this level.”

Brough himself has been as consistent as almost anyone, starting all-but one league game this season as Jon Brady’s first-choice left-back.

"It's difficult to get into a promoted team and stay in the team so to play as many games as I have, I'm really happy,” he continued. "I've done OK I think. I try and base my game on being as consistent as possible.

"Every player has the odd bad game, that's just how football work, but I aim to be consistent and I hope the fans and everyone can see that. I've stayed in the team this long so the gaffer must think it's working a little bit!”

Cobblers are always a threat down that left-hand side. Brough has the stamina and running power to overlap or underlap on regular occasions while the likes of Sam Hoskins and Mitch Pinnock are given the freedom to drift inside and create problems centrally.

"The more you play together, the more those relationships on the pitch build,” added the 27-year-old. "It was Mitch for a little bit against Fleetwood at the weekend but normally Hosk is in front of me and obviously he's right-footed and he can go either way. I know he'll often go inside and I can go round him and if I can take a few defenders away from him, he gets the space to take shots.

"You might do that run 10 times and only get it once but you know what strikers are like and you can't really argue with Hosk at the moment. He's in unbelievable form and I'm happy for him to crack on, but it's really good as a full-back to be given that freedom to get forward and we've played a lot of good, attacking football recently

"The main job is to keep a clean sheet and defend properly but I've always liked going forward and getting involved and playing in this team allows me to do that. I can put crosses in and get up and down and I'm really enjoying it.”