Wayne Brown critical of ‘criminal’ Colchester defending

Colchester’s interim boss Wayne Brown said he “could not justify” some of his side’s “criminal” defending during their 3-0 defeat at Northampton.

Brown was generally pleased with his side’s performance but hit out at the defending for Northampton’s goals, particularly Fraser Horsfall’s header.

Horsfall converted Mitch Pinnock’s corner after 16 minutes before Sam Hoskins and Benny Ashley-Seal scored in the second half.

“Believe it or not, but in the first half I thought we were the better team,” said Brown.

“They had to tweak their system because we were on the front foot, but as well as we imposed our game onto them, the bottom line is that the game is won and lost in each box.

“There were two free headers for them from set-pieces in the first half – one they score from and another cleared is off the line – and that’s criminal.

“You cannot justify that in any league, at any level, in any country. You can’t give teams free headers in your own box.

“We found ourselves 1-0 down in a game where there was nothing in it. If anything we were on the front foot and probably had more shots than them in the first half.

“But the reality is we have to be better in both boxes because we lacked penetration and confidence and we were not ruthless when we got into their penalty area.

“Being 1-0 down at Northampton is tough so you have to stay in the game, but we come out in the second half and concede really early and then it’s a mountain to climb.”

Northampton returned to the top three with the victory, keeping their 16th clean sheet in the process.

“We are very pleased overall,” said Cobblers boss Jon Brady. “We worked hard, apart from maybe a 10-minute blip in the second half when I felt we got a little bit sloppy.

“We lost a bit of control and they changed shape and put a bit of pressure on us but we made a couple of substitutions and locked it off.

“It was good to get another goal at the end to make it more comfortable – it was important to get three goals on the board.

“People talk about not scoring from open play but before we scored today, we also had two cleared off the line, so we’re creating chances.

“We’re a very strong set-piece team and today we managed to find a way to score a couple of goals from open play and hopefully that can now continue.

“The clean sheets is a whole team effort because we work from front to back.”