Former Cobblers man named new boss by League One club

The 40-year-old former striker, who played for Northampton between 2016 and 2018, had been in interim charge since Steve Evans left for Rotherham last month. He previously took charge of the club in February 2020 before parting company in November the following year.

Boro chairman Phil Wallace said: “We’ve taken our time to consider various candidates, but we believe the dynamics of our squad dictated that Alex was the natural successor to Steve. Alex knows the players, he’s been part of the original recruitment metric and, importantly, he’s held in high esteem by the dressing room. However, we wanted to improve our chances of success on the pitch by providing an experienced coach/assistant manager with in-game expertise and years of experience winning games.

“In this regard, we’ve also appointed the management team that Alex has chosen with Neil Banfield joining as assistant manager/first team coach and Scott Cuthbert taking over Alex’s former number three role.

“We had options of managers with more experience, but there’s never a guarantee the dressing room will buy into someone new and our dressing room this year is special. We have a group of hard working, great characters and we wanted to retain the identity we’ve created. These players have a respect and trust in Alex that we have built upon by adding proven coaching ability and experience in Neil.

“There are never any guarantees in football, but we believe this is the right management team to establish us as a League One club that can push the big boys all the way.”