Ward to stay with Cobblers as Hogg confirms reason for Briggs substitution
· James Heneghan · 2026-08-02 · nguồn gốc
No decision made on Ward after final pre-season game
Trialist Grant Ward will remain with Northampton ahead of next weekend’s Carabao Cup opener against Leicester City.
The 31-year-old midfielder has spent the whole of pre-season training with the club, featuring in five of Town’s six friendlies. However, the former Ipswich and Blackpool player did not come on against Solihull in Saturday’s final pre-season game and, with the new season on the horizon, a decision will need to be made sooner rather than later.
"The situation hasn't changed with Grant,” said Chris Hogg after Saturday’s 4-2 win at Damson Park. “There are constant discussions with him and we'll see what happens over the next week or so.”
Logan Briggs was the only player to come off a half-time on Saturday. The 20-year-old is ineligible to play against Leicester next weekend as he is on loan from the Foxes.
"Logan came off at half-time but that was pre-planned,” explained Hogg. “He's fine. It's a difficult one for him because he can't play against Leicester with them being his parent club.
"He's going to go a little spell without playing much football so we will look at his training programme and what we can give him to make sure he's in a good spot for when we need him at the start of the league season.”
Matty Warhurst netted for the second time in pre-season against Solihull and, like his effort at Southend, it was another typical poacher’s goal, tapped in from a few yards out after good work by Kamarai Swyer.
"There's no such thing as a bad goal,” Hogg added. “I've said numerous times that Matty will be a good player for the club. It's a really good learning curve for him in terms of being around us and how we want to do stuff.
"It'll be very different to the stuff he's been used to at Man City but it's learning about the physicality of football and I thought you saw progress today with how he used his body and how he took bumps and tried to impose himself within the game.
"It might be aerial basketball at times in League Two and it's about how he's able to influence contact with defenders to allow us be in control for that next phase. There was loads of good from him today and I'm pleased he got another goal.”