Darrell Clarke ‘angry and frustrated’ at Robins’ lack of cutting edge in defeat

Cheltenham boss Darrell Clarke was “angry and frustrated” with his side’s inability to turn pressure into goals after their 1-0 defeat to Northampton.

The Robins have been in good form since Clarke’s arrival and they had the better of the first half at Sixfields without creating any clear-cut chances.

Will Ferry hit the post at the start of the second half and that proved a key moment as Northampton forward Kieron Bowie both won and scored the decisive penalty to keep second-bottom Cheltenham three points away from safety.

“I’m pretty angry and frustrated to be honest,” said Clarke. “We got the ball into the final third on a lot of occasions today but we didn’t produce, whether that was the final pass, the cross or the shot.

“We asked plenty of questions of them but didn’t have the end product, which was frustrating, and then we give them a sloppy penalty, which was even more frustrating.

“I feel angry at the minute but we will go again. There are no complaints over the penalty – Lewis (Freestone) has to learn because he’s done it a couple of times now. You can’t be diving in there.

“It was always going to be a game where an error or a bit of quality made the difference and unfortunately we’ve given them a goal and then we lacked quality at the other end.

“We’re better than that and to be honest I see it as three points dropped, not one, because we got into so many areas of the pitch where we could have hurt them but we fell short.”

Northampton have won seven of their last 10 league games and are up to ninth in League One.

“We had to work hard to get the result today,” said Cobblers boss Jon Brady. “People won’t realise just how heavy the pitch was and how hard Cheltenham worked.

“I labelled them Stevenage 2.0 with how they play and it’s no disrespect to them because Clarkey has got a huge tune out of them and they are one of the most in-form teams in the league.

“They don’t let you get out and they don’t let you breathe and we tried to play but it was just so difficult because they suffocate you so we had to change shape at half-time.

“I thought it worked a lot better with two up front and to win and score the penalty was great. It was a shame that we didn’t finish the game off earlier because we had chances to score more goals.

“But overall, to get nine points from 12 over the Christmas period is a brilliant effort and hats off to the players and it’s put us in a good place in the table.”