Town Head Coach Luke Williams admitted that his side’s 2-1 defeat to Northampton Town this evening was hard to take.
An own goal had put the Cobblers ahead at Sixfields but Luke Norris’ emphatic header looked to have secured at least a point with less than ten minutes remaining.
However, Northampton responded straight from kick-off and bagged the winner seconds after Town’s equaliser thanks to John-Joe O’Toole’s header, leaving Williams crestfallen.
“It is impossible to deal with straightaway because it is too difficult,” he told the local media.
“I think it is again the mentality and we don’t mark the box properly and we maybe lost concentration and again it cost us, because two crosses in the box and we concede two goals.
“We made a silly tackle in the box early on and got away with it because Lawrence (Vigouroux) got us out of trouble.
“We then scored the equaliser but we’re so negative and we sit so deep that we allowed the opposition to shoot and we conceded from the corner.
“You have to try and that is all you can do. It is irretrievable if you don’t try and if you don’t push the players to be stronger people and to grow up and to be men, then of course it is impossible but we’re not quitting.
“There’s devastation in the changing room and now we have to dust ourselves off and be ready to go again on Saturday.”
Williams also explained the decision to replace Fankaty Dabo at half-time with the defender having picked up an early booking.
“They put a lot of pressure on us and they left three players at the top of the pitch and they hit everything long – I don’t think Fankaty has been exposed to that too many times,” he added.
“With a young player there is always a chance that they could struggle to recover but we know that he’s got so much quality and such a bright future that it happens.
“Once he was booked I thought it was too much of a risk to keep him on the pitch because he was going to continue to be under pressure and that’s why I made the decision to remove him.”
