Brady heaps praise on his players and reveals the tactical tweak that helped secure Fleetwood win

Although the final scoreline gives the impression of a dominant and comfortable home win, it was not all plain-sailing for the Cobblers during Saturday’s largely excellent 3-0 victory over Fleetwood Town.

Town were the better side and they thoroughly deserved all three points, but there was a period in the second half when they had to soak up pressure and show resolve as Fleetwood, trailing 2-0 at the time, dominated possession and probed for an opening.

However, a tactical tweak by Jon Brady allowed Cobblers to regain control and see the game out with relative ease before Mitch Pinnock’s second in stoppage-time rubber-stamped a fourth win in five league games.

"It was a really professional performance,” said Brady. “I thought we played some good football in the first half and it was good to get the goal early and then go 2-0 up.

"In the second half, when they piled the pressure on, we were a bit open. They left two at the back and pushed their full-backs right on and on transition I felt we gave the ball away a little bit too much.

"In the end, we went 4-4-2 with Sam (Hoskins) up top with Louis (Appéré) and Leno (Marc Leonard) out on the right and we started to get a bit more joy. It's a trade-off because they were gambling and we thought we'll put two up front against their two at the back and try and slide it down the sides.

"Once we started to do that, 10 or 15 minutes towards the end, we were a lot better and we were still creating chances right until the very end of the game.”

Some of Fleetwood’s play on Saturday belied their lowly league position but they defended poorly and lacked a cutting edge up front. By contrast, Cobblers had an end product to go with their good football.

"I know Fleetwood's results haven't been great but they've played well in many of their games and they have a lot of good players,” Brady added. "But the way we played and some of the football we produced was really good. We tried to set up in a certain way today and the boys implemented it so well, especially in the conditions.

"The pitch was very heavy. Even I was surprised in the first five or 10 minutes because you could see water splashing up and it was difficult for the players to trust the surface so it was really tricky conditions. To do what we did in those circumstances made it even better.”