Keith Curle left to rue ‘naive defending’ as Northampton lose again

Posted Sunday, December 20, 2020 by PA

Northampton boss Keith Curle felt his struggling side only had themselves to blame as they slumped to a second successive 4-0 defeat.

The Cobblers were thrashed at Oxford in midweek and endured another miserable afternoon at the hands of promotion-chasing Lincoln.

The writing was on the wall after just 65 seconds as Anthony Scully raced through to open the scoring before Tom Hopper stooped to head in a second on the cusp of half-time.

Brennan Johnson rubbed salt into Northampton’s wounds with two late goals, piling the pressure on Curle.

“It’s a bad start and it all comes from our free-kick,” said the Northampton manager. “We get a free-kick and then the next thing we know we’re picking the ball out of our net after two minutes.

“That’s not what we needed. We talked about them breaking before the game, but we didn’t win the first contact and vacated an area which gives them an opportunity to break forward.

“We know we haven’t been getting the results, so the last thing you need is to concede an early goal. You need to get into the game and gain dominance and we spoke about getting on the front foot and putting them under pressure.

“But we gave them a lift up. They’re a good team, but I didn’t think there was that much in the game after that, but then they go and get a second goal and you’ve got to say it was very naive defending.

“The effort and the commitment was there but naivety in our defending cost us.”

The win took Lincoln level on points with leaders Portsmouth.

Manager Michael Appleton said: “It was a good performance, but a different performance to what you would usually want because we had to pick our moments when to play and when not to play.

“We had to play conditions. In the first half the wind was right down our throat and the pitch wasn’t conducive to taking too many risks on, but I thought it was a real controlled performance and it was important to keep a clean sheet after the last two games.

“The pleasing thing is that we were prepared to run away from the ball. I felt we were unlucky not to win on Tuesday with the amount of territory we had and the chances we created, but we were clinical today.

“It obviously helped to score in the first few minutes because it got us off to a good start and gave us a platform and the second goal was important to go 2-0 up at half-time.

“We dominated the right areas of the pitch in the first half and again in the second and we deserved to win the game.”