Boss Brady says Cobblers can relish being underdogs at in-form Port Vale

Vale, who are now managed by Andy Crosby, were thrashed 7-0 by Barnsley on the opening day of the season but they’ve responded with four wins and one draw from their next five games, lifting them up to fourth in the early standings.

Brady said: "I watched the game back against Barnsley and they actually played quite well, would you believe it!

"I think Barnsley had about eight shots and seven of them went in, but since then Port Vale have shown great resilience to bounce back.

"I know it's early days but after six games they are fourth in the league and they've been very positive so I suppose, for those on the outside, we will go there as the underdogs.

"They have a very good squad and it'll be a tough game for us but a game we're really looking forward to – we don't mind being the underdogs."

Cobblers have gone two weeks without a league game after their fixture against Derby County was postponed.

And Brady believes his squad will benefit from the week off, adding: "We worked the players quite hard last week so we were able to give the group the weekend off, but we all came in with a bounce in our step, looking forward to the week ahead.

"It's been a chance to refine some of our principles and it's also important to work on things individually.

"But we feel we've used the break really positively and we're refreshed and ready to go again.”

Although Cobblers may not have as many points as they would have wanted at this stage of the season, Brady is confident the results will come if his side’s performances remain at their current level.

He continued: “We've had some really good spells in every single game and it's been by the one goal that we've either won or lost.

"We expect ourselves to be highly competitive and we want to be consistently picking up points along the way.

"We were on a good run before the Wycombe game.

"I felt we deserved something from that game but we didn't put the ball in the back of the net and I'm hoping we can change that on Saturday.”