Brady admits second-half 'wasn't good enough' from 'tentative' Cobblers
Town make hard work of struggling Oldham
Cobblers boss Jon Brady accepted his side's second-half performance 'wasn't good enough' despite doing enough to beat Oldham Athletic on Tuesday.
Town were in cruise control at the break after a dominant first 45 minutes, leading 2-0 thanks to goals from Jon Guthrie and Kion Etete.
But the relegation-threatened Latics, under former Town manager Keith Curle, rallied after a triple change at the start of the second-half.
Carl Piergianni halved the deficit before Oldham missed several good chances to score an equaliser.
"They put everything on our back four in the second-half but our back four didn't win first contacts and for some reason we were very tentative," said Brady.
"We know in the changing room that the second-half wasn't good enough but I thought we were excellent in the first-half and we should have put them to bed and made the game safe.
"We could have killed the game there and then but because we didn't finish our chances before half-time, we gave them a chance.
"They put a four-man press on our back four and they gave us no space or time in the second-half whereas before that we were playing around their shape.
"There was clever movement up front and we were getting in behind and pulling them apart and we were getting crosses in and getting shots off at will."