The Great Escape is still on for Cobblers
CHRIS Hackett took just three minutes to score Northampton’s decisive goal at Accrington and Chris Wilder admits finding any way to win will be crucial to their survival hopes.
The winger scored from a difficult angle in the game’s second attack and it was vital that the Cobblers picked up three points and not just because Wycombe and Portsmouth won their games against Dagenham and Hartlepool.
It was a first win in seven for Northampton and manager Wilder believes the time for talking has to come to an end.
“We had to find a way to win,” said Wilder.
“It’s always difficult psychologically to play at Accrington because they get on the front foot and they’ve hurt some very good teams.
“There has been a lot of talking over the past 13 or 14 games from players, supporters and people involved with the club and that had to stop and we had to make sure we did all our talking on the pitch.
“I was a touch disappointed that we didn’t go in 2-0 up at half-time but we didn’t let that affect us.
“We’re not playing with an unbelievable amount of confidence so the key thing was to find a way to win, and we did that.
“It was important that we got the first goal,.
“Last week we conceded first and that just completely drained us. After that we had some- thing to fight for and something to hold on to.”
The Cobblers scored the only goal of the game when Hackett latched on to a long ball and finished from a tight angle. Stanley’s James Gray put an effort wide, before Emile Sinclair’s shot at the other end was blocked by defender Tom Aldred.
Visiting keeper Matt Duke had to make a superb injury-time stop to deny Kayode Odejayi and secure the points.
Accrington themselves are now just six off the drop zone but their manager would not trade places with his opposite number, despite the result.“We’ve made remarkable progress this season,” said James Beattie.
“We’re in a much rosier position than at the start of the year and I’d rather be sitting in our dressing room than in Northampton’s.
“I don’t think they created much that we didn’t gift them.
“They could have scored three times off our mistakes.
“You can’t legislate for things like that.You can’t work on individual mistakes in training.
“I have to say I don’t know how he (Hackett) got the ball in from the angle that he did.
“It was a very good finish but we couldn’t get back into it after that.”