McGleish backing Northampton Town to clinch automatic promotion

McGleish scored 24 goals and was named the club’s player of the year the last time they went up from league two, in 2006.

The 39-year-old believes the close nature of the division this season will prove in Northampton’s favour and that their supporters will soon be celebrating a return to league one football.

“That’s often the hardest part, crossing that line,” he said.

“You look at Port Vale and Gillingham, they were clear for a long time and they’ve started to struggle.

“Northampton are in and amongst it and they are expected to keep it going now until the end of the season and that they had their bad spell earlier in the year.”

The 2006 team was one that contained more experience than the current side but McGleish feels there are similarities, notably in their ability to grind out results.

He also felt the side learned a lot by their failure in the play-offs the previous season, something that should serve as both warning and inspiration to this year’s squad.

“We added a lot of experience between the two seasons,” he said.

“Most of the players were the same but the ones we changed were all for more experienced players.

“Sean Dyche, Eoin Jess and Ian Taylor all came in and they had all that footballing brain because they’d done it at a higher level, and for a long time.

“The boys who were there the year before, though, had the know-how of being a top side and didn’t want to go through it (a play-off failure) again.

“The grinding out the results came as a result of that.

“When you’re losing 1-0 and you score late on to get a 1-1 draw, that’s a bonus point.”

Read more of our exclusive interview with Scott McGleish, plus another exclusive with manager Aidy Boothroyd and details on how to vote for this season’s player of the year, in this week’s Chronicle & Echo.