Brady admits off-colour Cobblers had no answer to 'brutal' Walsall approach

The struggling Saddlers played ‘no-risk football’, as Brady described it, and their method paid off with the game’s only goal on 38 minutes, Danny Johnson heading in from a long ball into the penalty box.

Town were better in the second-half but for all their possession and territory, they did not have a single shot on target and subsequently missed the chance to go top of League Two

"It was a difficult night,” admitted Brady. “We pushed and pushed towards the end of the game and we dominated probably the last 30 minutes without really testing their goalkeeper enough.

"It’s obviously frustrating to lose. They were under pressure and you could see they played no-risk football.

"They turned it in, landed on it, turned it in, landed on it and it was relentless.

"We just couldn’t get to grips with it in the first-half and it was quite brutal but we started to impose the way we wanted to play in the second-half and play through the lines.

"We changed the shape and I thought we looked miles better and dominated the final part of the game, but again we huffed and puffed and didn’t test their goalkeeper.”

Johnson’s winning goal all stemmed from an offside decision against Danny Hylton despite the ball clearly coming off a Walsall player last.

Brady added: "Obviously we have to defend the free-kick it better because we don’t defend it too well but when you look back, how that’s adjudged to be offside, it’s plain to see that it’s not offside and that’s where the goal comes from.”