Taylor not happy with lacklustre Grecians
EXETER boss Matt Taylor was left deeply unimpressed by his side’s “weak” performance during their defeat to Northampton.
The Grecians succumbed to back-to-back losses after Aaron Pierre’s first-half opener was added to by Andy Williams just shy of the hour-mark, with Aaron Martin’s header nothing more than a consolation.
Exeter now drop out of the play-off places and Taylor said: “We didn’t compete well enough and we didn’t play the conditions well enough.
“We’ve got good ball players, but they get taken out of the picture when they don’t get the ball and get control of possession.
“We didn’t match them anywhere on the pitch. We really struggled at both ends and they really imposed their physicality on the game and full credit to them for that.
“If you want to give yourself a chance of winning, you have to do the basics and we didn’t do that today.”
The game took a while to get going, but Exeter should have been in front midway through the first half when Matt Jay was unable to force the ball home against some desperate last-ditch defending. However, it was Northampton who hit the front after 31 minutes when Marvin Sordell’s header came back off the crossbar and dropped to Pierre, who bundled the ball over the line.
City keeper Christy Pym stood up bravely to deny Daniel Powell in first-half stoppage-time, but Town doubled their lead just shy of the hour-mark when Williams turned in Powell’s low cross.
The visitors responded within three minutes, levelling through Martin’s header after Jonathan Forte saw his effort saved.
Cobblers manager Keith Curle was delighted with his side’s third straight win.
He said: “We were playing against a very good team who have operated in the play-offs for the majority of the year but, on the balance of play, they probably had only 12 or 15 minutes when they played how they wanted to.
“The credit for that goes to us because we stopped them from playing and nullified their threats. I thought we managed the game very well.
“A home win was the only thing that has been missing because our away form has been good.”