Jim Bentley concerned by ‘frailties’ shown by Rochdale in Northampton defeat

Boss Jim Bentley admitted he saw worrying “frailties” in his Rochdale team as they crumbled to a 3-0 defeat at high-flying Northampton.

Since replacing Robbie Stockdale at Spotland, Bentley has seen his team draw twice in Sky Bet League Two and suffer a narrow 1-0 defeat to leaders Leyton Orient.

But despite a bright start at Sixfields, Dale were well-beaten as in-form Sam Hoskins scored twice to add to Jon Guthrie’s stunner to leave them rock-bottom with just two points from nine games.

“We are very disappointed,” admitted Bentley.

“We’ve been in the building for three weeks and I’ve heaped praise on the players, we played the team at the top of the table in midweek and ran them very close and could have taken a point from them.

“But I’ve seen some frailties today that is not a reflection of how we have worked and how we want to work moving forward with the position we are in.

“I thought in the first half, certainly the first 25 minutes or so, we were on top.

“There wasn’t much else in the half for me, there wasn’t much in the game, and then they score a goal that was one of those where it could go out of the ground or fly into the top corner, and unfortunately for us it went in the top corner.

“That meant we were 1-0 down at half-time, which we didn’t deserve.

“In the second half we were poor, but I felt we were well in the game at 1-0 down against a team that are the top scorers in the league.

“Liam Kelly then has a fantastic chance at the back post to make it 1-1 and it could have been a different game and a different story.”

Cobblers manager Jon Brady was delighted as his side claimed a third straight win, and pointed to Guthrie’s spectacular goal that opened the scoring just before the break as the turning point.

“It wasn’t one of our better games all over, but fair credit to Rochdale,” said the Town boss.

“Jim Bentley has got them very organised and they were posing us a real threat early on.

“I was then moaning about Jon Guthrie being manhandled by two players, he was also moaning at the ref, and the ball comes to him and he dips a volley from about 25 yards into the top corner!

“But I felt we needed that goal in the first half, because they have been so well organised under Jim.

“They really work hard for each other and are really hard to break down, so we needed that first goal for the game to open up, otherwise it could have been a bit stuffy.”