Cobblers pair insist promotion is still on the cards for Town this season

Midfielder Marc Leonard admits it’s ‘difficult’ to pinpoint exactly what has gone wrong for the Cobblers in recent weeks, however he remains confident that they can still win promotion this season.

Town have won only two games since Christmas and are now fifth in Sky Bet League Two following Stockport’s victory at Rochdale on Tuesday.

"It's difficult to put your finger on what it is,” said Leonard. “It's been going on for a few weeks now. I wouldn't say we have lost our mojo but we had momentum and we were taking games to teams and running over the top of them and scoring goals and getting that little bit of luck.

"We need to look at ourselves and we need to see where the problems lie and fix it and fix it quickly because we should be winning games like this (against Grimsby on Saturday).

"At the moment, it's a bit cliched but we are in a blip. In terms of what the manager wants to do, we carry it out but we need to make sure we carry it out for 90 minutes and concentrate fully and not allow any mistakes that are going to cost us.

"We are at a point now where we have to roll our sleeves up and earn the right to be promoted, rather than just going off what's happened so far this season. We just need a win and if we can get that win, we will pick our form back up. I'm confident we can get over this. We have players good enough to go and win every game week in, week out."

Sam Hoskins agreed, adding: "We just have to stay positive. Obviously we will look back at the mistakes and focus on what we can do better but every team will have a tough period and we have more than enough in the changing room to pull us out of this and go and get promoted.

"That's still the aim. I know a lot of people think it's all doom and gloom at the moment but it's just a sticky run and we will turn it around."