Brady admits Cobblers need more incision and purpose to go with their possession

Manager Jon Brady would liked to have seen a little more ‘incisiveness’ from his side in key moments during Saturday’s 0-0 draw with Tranmere Rovers.

Cobblers dominated possession and played some nice football in the middle third of the pitch, particularly in the first-half, but they struggled to convert their control of the contest into clear-cut chances.

The clearest opportunities instead fell to Tranmere as Lee Burge brilliantly denied Kane Hemmings and Paul Lewis in the first-half, while Town’s best moments came late on with Danny Hylton close to turning in Sam Hoskins’ cross and Hoskins himself dragging wide in stoppage-time.

Cobblers remain the division’s top scorers, one goal better off than leaders Leyton Orient, so there were no major concerns for Brady afterwards, but he accepted that his side were well blunted by the organised and disciplined visitors.

"We want to be winning that game and we want to be creating loads more chances,” said Brady. “We had 14 shots but they are a side that doesn't concede many goals and they made it very hard for us to break them down.

"We had 61 per cent possession but what we want to do is be purposeful with our possession and I think you have to give the opposition credit at times because you look at the amount of blocks they made and the way they threw their bodies at the ball around the edge of the penalty box.

"Yes, we would like to be better and more incisive in certain moments with those little slipped passes in the final third and things like that, but credit to Tranmere for the way they defended and how they worked for each other.

"It's not all about possession, we know that, and of course we want to score, but they got into their shape very quickly and that made it hard to break them down. We did have some good, incisive moments but we didn't make the best of them.”