Youthful Cobblers provide encouragement for Brady after Carabao Cup exit to Wycombe

Some strong individual performances and an improved second-half showing provided Cobblers boss Jon Brady with reasons to be upbeat despite his side’s exit from the Carabao Cup to Wycombe Wanderers on Tuesday.

Two well-taken goals in the space of six first-half minutes, scored by Joe Jacobson and D’Mani Mellor, gave Cobblers a mountain to climb but they did not go down with a whimper and could easily have forced a shoot-out, especially after Louis Appéré pulled one goal back from the penalty spot late on.

"I think it was a good exercise for us in many ways despite the result,” said Brady. “What we wanted to do tonight was to give the younger players an opportunity and eight of the starting XI were aged 24 or under.

"We wanted to have a look at them. There could have been better moments in possession in terms of when to retain and when to play those key passes and the ball was turned over too much early on.

"But we were much better in the second-half. We played with a lot more purpose and a lot more intensity and to have 20 shots in total tonight bodes well. Their goalkeeper made some good saves and we just couldn’t quite get over the line and get the second goal but I was pleased with the second-half.”

Brady made seven changes in all with Mitch Pinnock, Shaun McWilliams and Danny Hylton among those to drop to the bench and Sam Sherring taken out of the squad altogether.

“You have to consider a lot of factors and look at how the players are feeling after the weekend,” Brady added. “Some may have knocks which you need to take care of and there were a few in the group that we had to look after.

"It was important we did not take any risks and that then gave an opportunity to some of the younger lads and I thought that was good because it gives us and it gives the fans a chance to see what we have behind the main starters.”