Brady hails Mitchell's 'tremendous character' and praises whole team for Town's defensive improvement

Cobblers goalkeeper Jonathan Mitchell has earned praise from his manager for demonstrating 'tremendous character' in bouncing back after a couple of indifferent performances against Swindon Town and MK Dons.

Mitchell was criticised by Jon Brady for his part in both goals at the County Ground while some supporters also felt he was to blame for a couple of goals in the 4-3 defeat against Dons.

However, the Derby County loanee made two excellent saves en route to a clean sheet against Plymouth Argyle and then followed that up with solid displays against Portsmouth, Charlton and Doncaster Rovers.

Cobblers have now managed seven clean sheets in 2021, only three teams - Hull, Sunderland and Peterborough - in the division can boast a better record in that time.

However, whilst Brady praised his goalkeeper, he also believes the whole team deserves credit for the significant defensive improvement.

"That's three clean sheets in the last six for Mitch and that's testament to our front line working from the front all the way through the team," he said. "He's made some good saves of late, he made one really good save at Donny and the good thing for me is that he's having to face a lot fewer shots at the moment..

"That's down to the team defending from the front and I also feel his communication has accelerated a lot. Dan (Watson) is doing some great work with him and obviously we want that upward curve of improvement and we want him to keep going.

"He's a young guy learning his trade and I feel he's shown good improvement over the last few weeks, like all the guys.

"As a goalkeeper, you're in a position where you're the last man of the team and you are going to make one or two mistakes - it is going to happen - but I think he has shown tremendous character to come back from one or two errors.

"It was only through over-eagerness to try and help out his team-mate but he's learned from it, which is great."