but we'll probably get relegated from League 1

I hate it when other supposed Cobblers fans run the team down, saying we’re not good enough and that we haven't got a chance. That may be the case but why air those views?

Wouldn't mind if Lincoln went up through the play-offs, if only to shut you lot up.

Why would that shut people up? Even if they went up it wouldn’t prove anything, as I said before we were always massively overachieving so there was far more scope for Lincoln to improve, add to that a spate of injuries and a poor goalkeeping replacement which would have likely scuppered any remote hope of the play offs. First it was Bristol Rovers, then Orient, now Lincoln. It’s easy with hindsight to pick the team in form and say that could have been us.

Players & management - A-
Hard working team more than the some of its parts. Play a decent style of football and have overachieved this season.

Ownership - B-
Personally I don’t expect owners to piss away a load of their own money each year running the club beyond it means as it’s not healthy for football. At the moment I hear football league clubs complaining about the funding deal from premier league saying how unsustainable things are, which is garbage just pay less on players. Having said that the injury situation needs to be sorted, we need to be bringing more players through the youth system and we need to be making more money through transfer sales.

Facilities - C-
Fine but I feel with a few small changes we could make better of what we have.

Match Day Experience - B-
Similar to facilities.

Community - A
It’s clear the club puts a lot of hard work into the community and have been rewarded for it.

Do I feel part of the club - B

I assume Burge will be on his way at the end of the season?

I hope he stays, he’s solid enough at league 1 level not to be a problem. We go into the season needing 2 new keepers and end up with a starter at a similar level to Moulden then that could almost single handily get us relegated.

Don’t fancy trying to keep hold of Moulden?

Unfortunately he’s been a massive downgrade.

Well with the benefit of hindsight that's an easy get out clause that. How do you know how we might have fared had we made three good starting line-up signings on January 1st? Like grange said, we here in a better position than Lincoln.

We were massively overachieving while Lincoln were underachieving so there was far more scope for Lincoln to improve, while it’s no surprise to me that we seem to have run out of steam. Like you say who knows what would have happened but unfortunately the goalkeeper we bought in hasn’t worked at all.

Team near the bottom at home desperate for points against a team with nothing to play for hit by injuries, this match screams easy home win.

I have definitely become far more cautious and less excited about signing those bigger name players who are dropping down the league later in their career. For whatever reason they just seem far more miss than hit these days. David Nugent was a lucky escape and Mcgugan and Sordell are another couple of examples of players who seemed to had lost all motivation.

Oh aliens exist, of that I've no doubt whatsoever. To believe that of the 5,510 planets already discovered in our own galaxy, ours is the only one able to sustain life, would be the height of arrogance. Of course in the Milky way there are between 110 and 400 billion stars so who can say how many planets there are orbiting those. I dare say we've been visited many times already but have been deemed unready or even unworthy of being informed of what other worlds lie out there. It may even be religion that is holding us back, maybe other beings believe we couldn't handle being told there is no god.

Life on other planets undoubtedly exists like you say it’s a numbers thing, intelligent life and other civilisations that’s where the debate is. The Drake equation shows us the Milky Way should be teeming with life but there is just no evidence  ‘the great silence’ (Fermi paradox). So it seems unlikely aliens have visited earth, I like to think they are all as dumb as we are and either blew up their own planet or ignorantly treated it so badly that it destroyed itself.

but could greatly  increase revenues by over £500k a season with an increase in capacity

That figure seems ridiculously high.

That is fact or fiction. It doesn't dictate what people believe or have faith in. Only a killjoy would tell a child of a certain age that Father Christmas wasn't real....apologies for any spoilers.
The really good ones are life after death and time travelling, especially backwards. The scientists get uptight regarding the later as it is impossible based on the laws we know...today.
I like the the 'infinite universe' theory because I am sure in one of them we have a fantastic ground and playing in the Prem.

There are conspiracies on pretty much everything that has, hasn't, could've and couldn't have happened.

Yes the grandfather paradox although time travel could be done at a quantum level with subatomic particles. I do find it interesting faith and proof are associated with religion but are just as relevant to many prevailing scientific theories. We had to come up with cosmic inflation because the Big Bang theory turned out to be bollocks. As for dark matter and dark energy, it turns out we only have 5% of the normal matter we should have to make the universe work so we come up with dark matter and dark energy to account for the rest, both of which conveniently cant be seen or even detected by any equipment we have. Let’s be honest nobody really has a clue. I like the infinite universe theory too and like to think humanity might just be the equivalent of sea monkeys in some inter dimensional beings science project.

Wrexham have signed Jack Marriott.
I think this is another reason why people (rightly or wrongly) are getting frustrated at the lack of significant investment. The feeling of being left behind by all these similar clubs with big owners and big money, Carlisle/Wrexham/Stockport. It just pushes us further down the ladder. All I'll say is what happens if they don't become successful and they leave? With huge wage bills, I wouldn't like to be looking at the drop when another owner takes over. Is it worth the gamble...

Apparently we were after a couple of players from Fleetwood in the January window but were priced out. I’m guessing one would have been Marriott. Prior to him signing Wrexham were averaging 1.93 points per game, since signing he hasn’t scored and they are averaging 1.14 points per game and dropped out of the automatic places.

I’m not sure how significant it would be but surely it would affect prize money.
A good end to the season could be good for morale going into the new campaign.
A higher finish might make us more attractive to potential new signings.
Personally I wouldn’t be happy if we did a Scünthorpe and show no respect to other teams who have things to play for.
It might affect our good reputation as a place to loan players.
Just a few reasons off the top of my head.

Probably more a dig at the Scottish prem!

Regrettably, I'd let Appere go. He's a good lad, works hard but he's not a starter and we must improve the squad overall, standing still is not an option. 4 goals in 29 appearances this season just doesn't cut it. There's no room for sentimentality I'm afraid, not if we want to progress.

He isn’t a starter right now and any contract offer would reflect that in the wages, we still need reliable squad players. I think the stats are a little misleading as many of his appearances have been off the bench, the bbc actually have him down as 258 minutes per goal (Bowie is 305). I agree we need to improve but I assume Appere isn’t on that much, with what we’d save by letting him go you’d be looking at loans or players released from league 2 clubs to replace him.

I think you undervalue the side we currently have. Some players are actually improving and most have adjusted to League One. Above all we have a Manager who is able to motivate his players to perform to a higher standard. Players like Hondermarck, Sowerby, Hoskins, Willis, Leonard, Bowie, Pinnock, Simpson and probably the improving Moulden. That is a pretty formidable list and there maybe others too who can be added to the group detailed above. I would suggest that the team is at least as effective as 75% of the teams in League 1. The team we played on Saturday had recently beaten Orient and Bristol Rovers away something we failed to do.

When I said ‘For all intents and purposes a good but not all conquering league 2 squad’ the point I was trying to make is the team doing so well now in terms of personnel is nearly the same as the one that finished 3rd in league 2. The club resisted the clamour from some fans to bring in a load of ‘league 1’ players and are now reaping the benefits of having a settled squad. I wasn’t trying to undervalue the current team, quite the opposite. The point I was trying to make was to be cautious of now making wholesale changes thinking the players coming in will always be better than those we already have and the potential effect on a cohesive group of players.

That's an interesting post.
I get that Appere works hard and has some sort of ability but it seems like League One might be a bit of a stretch for him. I've been pretty negative about him but he's our player and will always put a shift in. He's  24 so could develop over time. Is that enough for a striker though?

I would offer him a contract. We have definitely achieved success this season as a collective being better than the some of its parts. This is for all intents and purposes a good but not all conquering league 2 squad. For that reason I would be very wary of making wholesale changes and risk affecting what we’ve built. I would move out the players who haven’t or barely featured or in areas we are over stacked and hope to improve the quality that way. Obviously a lot depends on the players we can attract and now safe(ish) I hope we’ve already started that process.

Despite what others may have felt at the time, he always was (in my opinion) an absolute car crash of a manager. Others may have their opinion about this,but, my experience of watching his brand of football cemented my opinion. Until Boothroyd usurped this.

Gary Johnson is surely a prime example of why football can be so amazingly unpredictable. Like you say he was a disaster here but then went to Yeovil, performed a minor miracle keeping them in league 1 before taking them to the championship with probably the smallest budget in league1. We talk about ambition and trying to make it to the championship, he did it but unfortunately straight after being hopeless here.

The as always, interesting Fans View from Oxford Utd fan Paul Beasley. Chap from Bicester who for away games includes his pub stop offs too. For their game at ours, it was the Malt Shovel!

Also, very interesting - and telling (what many of us believe) an in depth analysis of NTFC's financial side...and erm, ambitions!

https://rageonline.co.uk/fans-view-23-24-no-38-northampton-at-home/

Not really sure about the exciting Oxford rollercoaster ride. This century they’ve had two promotions and two relegations and half of those were their trip to the conference which they’re welcome to, no thanks. Ok they had their ride to the top funded by the pension thief but so did we earlier and football was a completely different landscape and less about finances.
The area financially we can learn from Oxford (which isn’t even mentioned) is their success in the transfer market. While we’ve brought in 1.1m in player sales in the last eight years they’ve raked in 19.5m. I would love to see us use are reputation for bringing on young players to try and bring in some up and coming talent, maybe a Chillvers from Colchester or Watt from Salford who are both out on contract at the end of the season.

So 7 out of 44 weren’t. Not bad odds on our chances again one day. Without the likes of non-league Luton dipping in/out of the Prem and Leicester winning the title. It’s what makes football unpredictable and great.

I love that Chelsea continue to keep pillaging Brighton but remain below them.