Northampton: Road to Glory

We were extremely unlucky to come away from Cheltenham with zero points as the boys gave it their all but could not break down the Cheltenham defense. Alex Nicholis also got a second yellow for an unprofessional foul.

We demolished Exeter City 4-0 although the media branded us the underdogs. Pleasing result!


Pablo Counago scored his first hat trick for Northampton!

I have convinced the owners to purchase our stadium so as to "create a feel-good atmosphere" around the place.


Anyhow I have confirmed what will be my eighth and ninth signing this window.. also on free transfers. This is stretching the wage budget a bit though, so there will be little to no players joining us for January and next season, although next season I'll look to off-load some players that aren't in my plans.

Gary Sawyer


Failed to pass his medical twice but succeeded the third time, the Northampton fans have praised my judgement to get the 26-year-old left-back. Released by Bristol Rovers after only one season and playing 37 games for them, Sawyer will play backup to first choice left back Joe Widdowson.

Erik Opsahl


Hailing from the USA, Opsahl is brought in as backup to my first-choice center midfielders and is only 18 with a heck lot of potential. Starting his career at Reading, Opsahl moved to Scotland to play for Dumbarton in the First Division but was released and I managed to convince him to come to Northampton after some tough contract negotiating - he is one for the future and has a lot of potential.

Northampton: My current squad

A very good comeback win over Chesterfield. We were trailing 2-0 at half time and I made it clear to the boys that their performance had been garbage and they needed to improve. My aggressive pep talk seemed to have work wonders and indeed in the second half Pablo Counago scored a delightful hat trick - what a man!

24-year-old Ryan Gilligan has left on a free transfer to Accrington.

We were punished by Sunderland in the second round of the League Cup.


However I am not too unhappy because we had already exceeded expectations by getting past the First Round, and I only want to concentrate on the league this season anyway.

Samba Kanoute, who recently returned from international duty with Mali U20s, got injured during the match but it's nothing serious and he should be available for selection by the next match.

Injury-related, new signing Gary Sawyer and Adebayo Akinfenwa are expected to return from their respective injuries in two weeks' time while our long-term injury Clive Platt will only return in a month and a half.

A very amazing comeback!


Alex Nicholis scored his first hat trick for the club and a Clarke Carlisle penalty handed Northampton a 4-3 win after they trailed 1-0, then 2-1, to Gillingham. It was an entertaining fightback.

A good win over Southend as we progress to the next round of the Johnstone's Paint Trophy.


August is over and it's the end of the summer transfer window.



My transfers, in and out, in my first summer as a manager and at Northampton.


In other news, I have come in 3rd for August Manager of the Month.

We had an end-of-month team meeting, this time at the Sixfields Stadium, where I congratulated on the players on a very impressive month. They were delighted with the praise and Pablo Counago even made it a point to tell me that he was enjoying it so far at Northampton.



The board also made it a point to tell me they were rather satisfied with my work so far.

An annoying draw against Rochdale. The referee gave a highly controversial goal to Rochdale but I refused to complain about it in the post match conference in case I got a warning - no one likes a warning. But inside, I was boiling. That controversial goal gave Rochdale the point! They were lucky to draw.

Alex Nicholis' delightful late goal gave us at least a point against Oxford in a poor match void of much chances.

It Looks like its going fairly well for you so far, Keep up the good work. What are the finances like at Northampton?

A narrow win over Aldershot.

We lost a disappointing match against Fleetwood where we were the outstanding favorites to win. After the match I yelled at them about how their performance was garbage and told them to buck up for the next match if any of them wanted to stay in the first-team. To add insult to injury Alex Nicholls got himself injured during the match and after being examined, my head physio Steve said "Alex will be out for at least a month".


After the match I returned to my office at Sixfields before the post-match conference, thinking of what I should say to the media, when a phone call came in. It was from the manager down at Cambridge United. Jez George was interested in taking Jason Crowe, a 32-year-old right back in my squad, for a month after seeing that Crowe wasn't getting any playing time here, a request I agreed to.

Jez George came down and after we had finalized everything, Jason was sent on his way to Cambridge, where he would remain for a month.