Brady 'couldn't believe' how open Cobblers were in the first-half against Salford

Jon Brady will highlight to his players this week where they went wrong against Salford after admitting he ‘couldn’t believe’ how open the Cobblers were during parts of the first-half on Saturday.

Town under Brady have always prided themselves on their organisation and solidity off the ball and even on bad days they are usually hard to play through and make life difficult for the opposition.

But that was not the case in the first-half at Moor Lane where they were regularly pulled out of shape and left oceans of space for Salford to attack at will and create chances, particularly down the right-hand side of their defence.

The clearest example of Town’s struggles came when the hosts restored their lead on 33 minutes. Sam Hoskins lost possession midway inside the opposition half and yet somehow, with full-backs Aaron McGowan and Akin Odimayo caught way upfield, Salford suddenly had five on three going the other way and they took full advantage when Conor McAleny slotted in the winning goal.

"I always protect my players and it will be for us to highlight to them what we should have done in that situation,” said Brady. “We were so gung-ho in that moment, I couldn't believe it, and they still had (Matt) Smith, (Ethan) Galbraith and McAleny above the ball.

"n the transition Galbraith gets on the ball and McAleny is half cheating but that was the work we done ahead of the game because we knew he would half cheat and stay in the pockets and we warned our defence of that.

"When you warn the players and then it still happens, it's disappointing. But the players are disappointed as well and 99 times out of 100, we get that right.”

Brady was much happier with how his side responded in the second-half after some ‘stern’ half-time words.

He added: "Josh (Eppiah) scored a very good goal that shouldn’t have been disallowed and we were getting in and causing problems. He had another one where he got in but (Theo) Vassell showed immense pace to get back in. We were breaking their back-line and we were hurting them.

"We know January is a very tough month for us and there are no easy games at this level so we will keep working hard and try and put it right next weekend.”

Eppiah said: "We were way, way better in the second-half. We started the first-half a bit slow and we were a bit sloppy for their two goals.

"If we had played the whole game as we did in the second-half, 100 per cent we would have got something out of the game."