Thomas 'wasn't surprised' by Brady's resignation due to 'variety of reasons'

The Cobblers boss stunned supporters last week by choosing to walk away from the job after 200 games and nearly four years in charge, with his assistant and now interim boss Ian Sampson admitting he was ‘shocked’ by the decision.

However, from his conversations with Brady and having seen the pressure he puts on himself, Thomas was less surprised than others.

"I wouldn’t say that James (Whiting) or myself were surprised,” Town’s chairman told the Cobblers show on BBC Radio Northampton. “There had been some discussions about it. There’s no easy way to say this but being a football manager is a very, very difficult job and it can be a very lonely job.

"Having worked with a lot of managers, I know it can be lonely and I’ve always tried to support managers, not just financially but there's an emotional support and a duty of care. I’ve tried to use my experience as a chairman to help a manager along.

"All the managers I’ve worked with have had self-doubts and they always question whether they can do better. I think any manager is not that far away from stepping away and Jon just decided it was time for him for a variety of reasons.

"It’s not for me to say why Jon decided to make that decision. You can’t hide from the fact that we don’t have the biggest budget in the league and there are pressures that come with that. We have always backed managers but some teams in the league can sign certain players and there were players that Jon was looking at who financially we can't get.

“That's what Jon’s job is – to look for better players. But there’s always that constraint, and I think with Jon social media maybe played a part. I used to talk to him quite a bit about ignoring what’s on social media but sometimes that can be very difficult.

"Results weren’t as good as he would have liked and Jon’s obviously local as well and that was an added pressure because he always surrounded by Northampton fans, so there were a lot of factors behind his decision.

"But we can’t get away from the fact that Jon did a very good job for us and we were very happy with what he did and there was no pressure from us as owners.”

Expanding on that final point, Thomas confirmed that Brady was no danger of losing his job after Cobblers dropped into the relegation zone.

"We hadn’t had any discussion around that,” said Thomas. “Jon had done enough at his time at the club to be given a bit of time. Every team goes on a bad run, we did last season and we came back really strong so we always had faith in Jon.

"There was no pressure from us and we kept reiterating that to Jon but I think he put himself under such internal pressure that it was tough for him.”