Brady reluctant to blame strikers for Town's goal shortage

Manager Jon Brady is reluctant to lay the blame solely on his strikers for Cobblers' lack of goals in recent games.

Town scored three times against Colchester United last weekend but have failed to net in over half - six - of their past 11 games, including three of the last four.

Brady has tried different combinations of formation and personnel, partly due to injuries, over the last few weeks, with Josh Eppiah leading the line at Rochdale on Saturday.

"We set up a certain way but they changed their shape so we readjusted a little," said Brady.

"I thought Josh showed glimpses but he just needs more consistent game-time to see the real best of him and I'm sure we will.

"At times, the strikers cannot be held accountable when the quality behind them is not good enough.

"We had an off day on that. We are better than that and we have shown better moments, certainly at home this season, so now we need to make sure we do that on Tuesday night.

"There's always fight with this side. I would never ever say otherwise with my side. We just need to be brighter and a lot better with our decision-making and add loads more energy to the game. We have bounced back before and we will bounce back again."

Cobblers go into Tuesday's home clash with Walsall still second in League Two but teams behind them are closing in.

"We haven't had many but you do have days when eight or nine players are not at the races and that's what we had on the day," Brady added.

"We were nowhere near our best. You aim for excellence and you try not to have mediocrity but unfortunately we were mediocre on Saturday.

"But we are right up in the top three at the moment and that was only our second loss in the last 10 games.

We want to drive on. We don't want to be hanging on.

"There's no time to get down about it. We need to dust ourselves down and be ready for Tuesday night.

"We are still second in the league so that is a positive but we don't want to be hanging on.

"But performances like that, we will be hanging on. Even if we're not at our best, I expect us to get a point.

"We have to move forward. There will be a little bit of debrief but we will stay positive and try and win on Tuesday night."