We were a shambles, says Cobblers boss Sampson

Published on Wednesday 1 September 2010 12:23

Northampton Town boss Ian Sampson branded his team a 'shambles' after their heavy defeat at Hartlepool United on Tuesday night, and said the players let the supporters down.

Town were crushed 4-0 at Victoria Park, with all four goals coming in nine disastrous second-half minutes, to end their interest in this season's Johnstone's Paint Trophy.

At no stage did Sampson's men look like scoring, and afterwards the manager was suitably scathing in his assessment of a performance he rates as the worst since he took the Northampton job.

"That was the worst we've played since I've been in charge," he said. "I've told the players exactly what I thought of them, and that's that they were a shambles.

"It was an absolute shambles; we didn't apply ourselves properly and I could see it coming after five minutes.

"We were very poor from back to front in terms of our quality. We didn't provide any sort of service to our front men and I can take one or two players out of it, but generally all of them put in poor performances.

"I'm happy that Chris Dunn is back in and he made some good saves in the first half and no blame can be attached to him for any of the goals.

"I don't think we've ever been like that since I came to the club and I was very disappointed with how we played."

Just 59 Northampton supporters made the long journey to the north-east last night and backed the team vocally right to the end, even when it became clear their team was going to finish on the wrong end of a hiding.

Sampson paid tribute to their loyalty, and said the team let them down.

"The fans were fantastic and they deserve a big thank-you from myself and all the players," he said.

"It was fantastic of 59 of them to come up and support us and we disappointed them and let them down.

"They were very good throughout the game. They are the real loyal supporters that turned up for this game and we let them down."

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Friday 10 February 2012

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We were a shambles, says Cobblers boss Sampson

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