Austin makes no excuses for poor Cobblers showing in Checkatrade loss

Town were particularly outplayed in the first-half with Scott Kashket's 11th minute screamer giving Wycombe a half-time lead, and despite improving somewhat in the second period, the home side fell to defeat.

"To say the first-half was poor would be an understatement I think," admitted Austin. "Considering I know how we work every day, I can't explain what I saw in the first-half.

"At least in the second-half we had a bit of a go but we still didn't play the football or the game that we play every day in training.

"A few of the fans were screaming for the ball to get smacked forward and I think that kind of put a bit in people's heads and it didn't help.

"We had opportunities and we got into areas and I thought we were going to get a goal at the end with (Dean) Bowditch but it was cleared off the line and that's our luck at the moment."

Austin named an entirely different team to the one which drew with Tranmere Rovers in the league three days earlier but he refused to use that as an excuse for their substandard display.

He added: "That's no excuse, not with the way that we work every day. All 20 players that we have every day on the training field all work the same way and everyone gets the same attention and the same preparation so I'm not going to make excuses - there aren't any.

"We played more on the front-foot in the second-half. I can accept a lot, I can accept when we don't play well, I can accept when we make mistakes but what I don't accept is when you don't fight for the shirt and you don't compete and run and press like the opposition did.

"In the first-half tonight, we were out-worked and I'm not going to have that said about my team."