Brady hails 'exceptional' midfielder and urges other Cobblers players to follow his lead

Manager Jon Brady hailed Ben Fox as ‘exceptional’ and encouraged other Cobblers players to follow his lead following Saturday’s laboured 1-1 draw against bottom-of-the-table Rochdale.

The Cobblers boss was unhappy with his side’s performance for an hour at Spotland, and in particular their use of the ball. Town’s possession was sterile and harmless and it took Ian Henderson’s opener to jolt them into life.

They continued to struggle to create anything clear-cut though and even Fox’s dramatic late leveller was a speculative – if brilliant – strike from the corner of the penalty box.

"I thought Foxy was exceptional today and that goal topped it off for him,” said Brady. “He just drove and drove and drove and he found pockets and played and ran forward.

"I said to the players in the dressing room afterwards that he typified what we need, but we need more bravery from the start – we shouldn't have to go a goal down to be brave on the ball.

"You need to be purposeful. We were just slinging in wasteful crosses. All of their back four are at least six foot and apart from when Tete (Yengi) came on, we don't have players in there who are going to head it.

"It needs to be clever play around the penalty box and I felt we took the easy option to just sling it in. I spoke to them at half-time about what we needed but then we came out and we weren't good enough at the start of the second-half.”

Brady was more positive about the impact of his substitutes, especially Yengi and D’Margio Wright-Phillips. The young loan pair combined to almost snatch a winner in stoppage-time.

"The subs gave us real energy and I thought they made a huge difference,” Brady added. "We were more brave on the ball, we broke their back-line and we were getting down the sides of them and creating one-twos.

"It was a clever pass from Tete. We spoke about him coming off the top line, getting on the half turn and playing slipped passes and what a run from D’Margio.

"It was an excellent run to break their back-line and it's fine margins again. You turn it around and you win 2-1 and the whole picture changes and everyone is over the moon.

"But the biggest solution we need to find is to be braver from the off in the way we play and how we break the opposition down.”