Brady urges fans to 'stick with us' and warns of more 'ups and downs' as youthful Cobblers evolve their style of football

Cobblers manager Jon Brady is asking supporters to ‘stick with us’ this season after warning there will be more ‘ups and downs’ due to the youthful nature of his squad and the way he is trying to evolve the team’s style of play.

The Town boss made the plea in the aftermath of Saturday’s excellent 3-1 victory over Barrow when goals from Sam Hoskins, Kieron Bowie and Tyler Magloire guided Cobblers to three timely points following back-to-back defeats.

Brady has constructed a young squad this season, highlighted by Saturday’s bench which included five teenagers. Not only that, he is also attempting to implement a more expansive style of football.

So far this season, Cobblers are averaging 51 per cent possession across their seven games and currently have a pass success rate of 67.4 per cent. Both figures are higher than last season, and the team are also attempting far more ‘short passes’ per game.

"It’s funny, some of our fans grumble when we try and play a bit more football and they also grumble when we don’t play football,” Brady said.

"On Saturday, there was a period where we kept the ball for 90 seconds, we drew them out, came round one way, all the way up the other side, crossed it and nearly scored.

"We are opening up a bit more and I think you can see that. We are trying and we will not always get it right. We have to get the balance between when to go long and when to play.

"We said we have got to keep improving and it will take 10 to 15 games but we want to be improving all the time. We had a bit of a bump last weekend when we weren’t at our best but we talked about it all week and we had to ride a bit of a storm on Tuesday night with what we had available and the injuries we took.

"You saw what we had on the bench on Saturday – five teenagers were on there. We had to get quite creative with the subs but I would say just stick with us. The average age of the group out there on the pitch was only 23.

"We might not get it right every time and we might crash and burn at times and we might be really up for a couple of weeks, who knows. There will be ups and downs and this season might not go how we want it to go but we have got players here for the future of this football club.”