Brady seeks consistency as Cobblers 'fight' their way back to better performances

Cobblers boss Jon Brady believes his side are still 'fighting' their way back to consistently better performances following an outbreak of COVID over Christmas.

Northampton beat Walsall 1-0 on Saturday for their second win in seven games since returning from a three-week break caused by COVID during the festive period.

Despite that win though, the Cobblers are still yet to rediscover the form and consistency that saw them win eight out of 10 across October, November and December.

"We have found it hard since COVID," said Brady. "We were off for 21 days and I feel that has taken its toll on us.

"We're trying to find that form again and we're fighting our way back to better performances but it's a work-in-progress at the moment.

"Managers have to deal with a lot but to have COVID hit us three times, it's cost us some results and that's tough to take.

"But it's something we have to live with now."

Nevertheless, Saturday's win was enough to lift the Cobblers to fourth, level on points with third-placed Sutton United.

"You can't ever relax and be happy because this league is absolutely relentless and for us now, we just have to find some consistency," Brady added.

"We were disappointed with the result on Tuesday but if we can find that consistency again, we'll sustain our threat near the top of the table."

The defeat to Barrow in midweek hurt Brady, but he was so pleased to reward Cobblers' noisy army of travelling supporters in the West Midlands on Saturday.

He continued: "The fans played a massive part. They really lifted us all game but especially from about minute 60 onwards because you could just hear them bouncing in the away end.

"We're all in this together and we're so appreciative of them and we're so pleased to give them something to go home happy.

"If I reflect back on Tuesday night, the biggest thing that really hurt us and the team was that we didn't give a true reflection of ourselves and we let our fans down.

"Today, we wanted to make sure we gave the travelling support every bit of our commitment and I feel like we did that."