Pinnock feels close to his best after admitting he can be slow to get going

Mitch Pinnock says he feels close to his best form after admitting it sometimes takes him a while to get up to full speed at the start of a new season.

Cobblers’ impressive rise into the automatic promotion places after 12 games has largely been achieved without the best form of their chief creator, at least until Saturday’s win at Swindon Town.

After finishing last season with nine goals and 12 assists, Pinnock did not have one of either six games into this. In the six matches since, he has four assists and one goal.

The 27-year-old was similarly slow to get going 12 months ago, even finding himself dropped from the team at one point, but once he found his mojo, there was no stopping him. If history repeats itself a year on, it will only enhance Town’s promotion push.

"I don't think I ever really start seasons well to be fair,” admitted Pinnock after popping up with an 88th-minute winner at Swindon. “But once you get a few games under your belt, you get your confidence back and you get up and running and hopefully now I can kick-on.

"I don't know why. It's just one of those things. When you spend time away from football in the summer, it's just about getting back into it but I feel good now and I feel like I'm firing so hopefully I can carry on from here.”

There’s not a whole lot of new stuff to be written about Saturday’s win at the County Ground because it followed the three main trends of Town’s season so far. They fought back from a goal down, a substitute played an instrumental role, and they scored a game-changing goal in the final few minutes.

On this occasion, it was Pinnock who came up trumps, poking in a cross from super sub Ben Fox just two minutes from full-time.

"I needed that goal,” he confessed. “To be honest I probably should have had about five before that.

"I didn't have that much time to react and sometimes that's a good thing because you can think about it for too long, like the one earlier in the game when I spooned the ball out of the stadium.

"Foxy put in a great ball, he's been brilliant whenever he's come on for us, and it was just instinct to finish it.

"I nearly scored at Swindon last season too so I was just waiting to run over and celebrate with the fans and it was a nice moment. I was buzzing to score.

"Like with last season, once I get one goal, hopefully they will keep going in and I've just got to keep it up now."

It was well-documented that Cobblers only took two points from losing positions throughout the entirety of last season.

Remarkably, just 12 games into 2022/23, they have already gained 10 points from such situations, the joint-most in the EFL.

"Obviously, last season, that was where we struggled,” added Pinnock. “I think we only got two points after going a goal down all season but we have come back a few times already this year.

"The confidence in the team is brilliant, even with the subs who are coming on. They are adding to us and making us better and stronger as the game goes on.

"We always feel like we can win so we keep going until the end and we are all just buzzing to have got the winner."