Thomas offers up no excuses for Town's struggles and says 'conversations have progressed' over possible structure changes

Cobblers chairman Kelvin Thomas says 'conversations have progressed' but 'nothing is finalised' regarding possible changes to the club's structure.

After appointing Jon Brady as first-team boss until the end of the season last month, Thomas spoke about the need to look at the structure behind the scenes in order to make the club more sustainable at League One level.

But whilst those conversations remain ongoing, it's unlikely anything will be confirmed until the Cobblers know their fate. They are currently four points from safety with three games to play, and Thomas offered up no excuses for another difficult campaign in League One.

"It's very difficult to formulate distinct plans until we know where we're going to be next season," he told BBC Radio Northampton. "Obviously we're very disappointed to be where we are in the league and we hoped not to be in this position.

"But we are and we face up to it and we'll look at the reasons why. We won't make any excuses but we do have to evaluate what we think got us to this point and see how we can improve.

"We need to look at the past five or six years and look at where we have been successful and how we have done that and trying to get better.

"Conversations have been progressed but nothing is finalised and the short-term focus is on the next three games."

Thomas is hoping to make changes that will help establish the club in League One. It's 15 years since Northampton won promotion to the third tier and remained there for more than two seasons.

Thomas added: "The club has been good at getting out of League Two but it becomes much harder in League One and this season in particular was so much harder for us because of the short period of time between the play-offs and starting in League One.

"You go back to who controls recruitment and we did well when Chris (Wilder) and Keith (Curle) controlled the recruitment in League Two and with promotions, we've typically had managers in charge of that with the help of chief scouts and stuff like that.

"We are looking at that and also the structure and how we interact with other departments in the club in terms of youth development and the academy, but it doesn't mean everything is broken because of where we are - the fact is it is more challenging in League One.

"We know that and we need to figure out a way of stopping that yo-yo situation, whether it's about more investment and looking at being more sustainable, but it's been a challenge for Northampton and many other clubs for quite a long time.

"Can we get more investment in and more finances in coming down the pyramid? How do we be stronger when coming up?

"The first one we lost a manager and the second one we lost players. We look at it realistically and we ripped out the defence of our promotion team - not intentionally - but did we replace these players well enough? That's a question we need to answer."