Curle reveals his thinking after tweaking Cobblers' system against Charlton

Manager Keith Curle has explained his reasoning behind the decision to tweak Cobblers' system for their defeat to Charlton Athletic at the weekend.

Curle's Cobblers usually play two men up front in a 3-4-1-2 formation, especially at home, but on Saturday he started with just one striker in Danny Rose and had Ricky Korboa and Sam Hoskins in attacking midfield roles.

Town played well in the first-half and should have led at the break, however they again struggled to create many clear-cut chances and two cheap goals not long after half-time saw Charlton run out 2-0 winners.

"When Christopher Missilou slammed the ball across the box in the first-half, that's that's where we could have done with an extra man up front," admitted Curle. "I take that onboard because it's an easy thing to say we would have caused them more problems had we started with two up top.

"At 0-0 at half-time, I thought we had a very good foothold in the game and we had limited a very good team to no chances and we had a few opportunities ourselves. That was the sacrifice of staying in the game, keeping our shape and looking a threat on the counter. It's not something I like to do at home but to keep the confidence in the team was needed."

Curle did put two up front when Benny Ashley-Seal and Caleb Chukwuemeka were introduced on the hour-mark, but by that point it was a long way back for the Cobblers.

"The other argument is that if you start with two up top and you go behind, where do you go? You can't take one off because it looks like you're not trying to get anything out of the game," Curle added.

"The plan was to stay in the game until an hour and then play two up front and cause them more problems. Unfortunately, by that stage, we were 2-0 down and we were chasing the game.

"Even then, Benny came on and had a great opportunity and we had a few other chances."