Captain Guthrie says Cobblers' illness issues are no excuse for back-to-back defeats

Skipper Jon Guthrie was reluctant to use Cobblers’ injury and illness problems as an excuse for their performance during Saturday’s defeat to Salford City.

Five players were absent from the squad entirely while even some of those who started at Sixfields had not trained in the days leading up to the game due to sickness, including top scorer Sam Hoskins and goalkeeper Lee Burge.

Town did not play poorly and were unfortunate to trail at the break after a very even first 45 minutes, but a toothless second-half performance allowed Salford to hang on and take all three points.

"It's not been ideal but that's part and parcel of football,” said Guthrie. “You are going to have injuries and illnesses over the course of a season so it's something we need to get on with.

"You look at the team we put out against Salford, in my opinion that was a good enough team to win a game of football so I don't think we can use it as an excuse.

"It obviously doesn't help. We have a free week now so hopefully we can get a good week of training in us and have a few players back fit and ready to go for a big game at the weekend.”

Despite successive defeats though, Guthrie is still feeling upbeat, adding: "There is still so much to be positive about. It has been a tough week but if you said we would be in the top three after 13 games and only lost three times, you would have taken that at the start of the season.

"We have had back-to-back defeats and you are going to be a bit down about that but when you look at the bigger picture, it's still been a really positive start and we are in a good position.

"Obviously we don't want to go on a losing streak so it's important to turn things around as soon as possible and hopefully we can do that at Orient."