Opposition view: Magpies didn’t deserve to lose, says County boss Moniz

After a bright start, the Cobblers took a deserved lead through Rod McDonald’s excellent header before County fought back with strong spells either side of half-time.

Jon Stead’s equaliser on 52 minutes was their reward, however Northampton refused to lie down and it was the visitors who took the points through Brendan Moloney’s fine solo goal 14 minutes from time.

“Based on the second half, we didn’t deserve to lose, but we were naive in the details,” said Moniz afterwards.

“We knew what their strength was – they have very good and creative players. We put Gill Swerts in there to protect the defence because we were a bit open against Portsmouth a few weeks back and didn’t want that to happen again.

“We didn’t create enough like we do when Stanley Aborah plays, but he was injured. We put Ronan Murray on to add more weight and numbers to the strike force and he did well.

“We were a lot better and when we got back to 1-1, all I was waiting for was the second goal.

“We had a great chance when Graham Burke produced a fantastic chip, but Thierry Audel couldn’t head it in. Liam Noble could have powered a header in and we had a lot of close chances like that.”