BEEF CURLE
Manager’s pop at his Cobblers
A FRUSTRATED Keith Curle said his Northampton players shot themselves in the foot.
The Cobblers, thumped 4-0 by Oxford in midweek, endured another miserable afternoon, going behind after only 65 seconds.
Anthony Scully opened the scoring and Tom Hopper headed a second, before two late goals from Brennan Johnson left the hosts to face up to another four-goal defeat.
“It’s a bad start and it all comes from our free-kick,” said Curle.
“We get a free-kick and then the next thing we know we’re picking
the ball out of our net after two minutes.
“We talked about them breaking before the game, but we didn’t win the first contact and vacated an area which gives them an opportunity to break forward.
“We know we haven’t been getting the results, so the last thing you need is to concede early.
“You need to get into the game and gain dominance and we spoke about getting on the front foot and putting them under pressure.
“They’re a good team, but I didn’t think there was that much in the
game after that, but then they go and get a second goal and you’ve got to say it was naive defending.
“The effort and the commitment was there but naivety cost us.”
The win took Lincoln level on points with leaders Portsmouth, and boss Michael Appleton said: “It was a good performance, but a different performance to what you would usually want.
“In the first half the wind was right down our throat and the pitch wasn’t conducive to taking too many risks on, but I thought it was a controlled performance.”