Curle admits Cobblers 'need to improve' after tame defeat to rivals Peterborough

Keith Curle admits the Cobblers 'need to improve' after being largely outplayed by rivals Peterborough United in Saturday's derby defeat at the PTS.

Posh started on top and although Town had a couple of chances, the visitors deserved the lead at the break after Nathan Thompson drilled into the bottom corner.

Cobblers struggled to muster much of a response and they were resigned to their fate once Reece Brown made it two nine minutes from time.

"It shows we need to improve and we need to continue that improvement," said Curle afterwards.

"They're a good team and they've got some very good footballers for this level but it shows the standard we need to get up to.

"We know we need to improve. I thought we contained them well in the second-half but in the first-half at times it showed they are slightly ahead of us in terms of what we want to get to.

"There's nothing wrong with identifying that but what we need to do now is identify the areas, individually and collectively, where we can get better.

"It was good play by them and good movement to get their man in the for the first goal. The second goal was a bit of brilliance but I thought we were naive. We had them penned in at a throw-in but they were able to get a free shot off in the box."