Curle: 'Angry' players must get back to what made Cobblers so good

Town enjoyed a superb run of form in the autumn when five wins in six lifted them into promotion contention before a similarly good run after Christmas cemented their play-off spot.

But three defeats on the spin, including Saturday's gut-wrenching loss at Walsall, has put a serious dent in their promotion charge, dropping them outside the top seven, albeit only on goal difference.

"There's a range of emotions but there's honesty and I've got that in the changing room," said Curle.

"I've got angry players in there and I've got frustrated players in there but I've also got honest players in there.

"We'll review it, we'll go back through it and there are areas that we need to improve on and do better.

"Yes, we've lost three games at the wrong time of the season but there's still a lot of games to go."

Cobblers were in command at half-time on Saturday as they led by two goals before throwing it all away in the second 45 minutes.

Curle now wants his players to get back to what made them so good, adding: "There's an honesty in that changing room and the players know they haven't done enough to win the game having scored two goals away from home.

"It was a game of two halves with the conditions and we played it well in the first-half.

"I can't really remember them having a shot but in the second-half they had too many shots and too many crosses into our box and we need to get back to what made us climb the table.

"That was doing the horrible things very, very well and taking pride in doing the horrible things."