Opposition view: Stevenage boss Evans believes two Cobblers players should have been sent off during Sixfields clash

Stevenage manager Steve Evans claimed Northampton could have had two players sent off during Saturday’s fiery 1-1 draw at Sixfields.

Louis Appéré poked the Cobblers into an early lead but Stevenage came roaring back in the second-half with Danny Rose, Dan Sweeney and Max Clark all going close before Jamie Red’s fine strike with 18 minutes to play brought the scores level.

The point keeps both Cobblers and Stevenage in the automatic promotion positions with seven games to play.

"They are a top-class side,” said Evans afterwards. “Nothing changes. I said before the game they have big resources – they had 10, 11 players out and still had 18 in the squad and others not involved.

"The goal after five minutes makes it's incredibly tough. There was quite a strong wind out there and we made a decision to defend it in the first half but it looks like it was a mix-up for their goal.

"They had better possession than us and we struggled for fluency but I made a decision to change the system at half-time and it obviously worked because the second-half was our best performance since I've come in.

"We made a really good side look very average and they're not average – they have top players with top coaches – but we laid siege to their goal.

"There have been words attributed to us from different managers in recent weeks but we have just switched off from all that nonsense and concentrated on ourselves.

"Everyone who is everyone said we would lose today because they have better players and better coaches and better everything, but let the second-half performance speak for itself."

Evans, however, was ‘alarmed’ that Northampton kept 11 players on the pitch following Akin Odimayo’s late challenge on Alex Gilbey and Tete Yengi’s elbow on Carl Piergianni.

"We can't allow for the challenge on Gilbey – it's a straight red for me but the ref gives a yellow,” Evans added.

"But the challenge on Carl Piergianni is absolutely disgraceful. There's no place in football for that. Our big centre-half has his nose hanging off and he's cut to bits. It's quite alarming.

"I think any neutral who was here today would say that Northampton should have been down to 10 men and maybe we should win 4-1. I will speak to the referee to ask how there weren’t two red cards in that game.”