Curle sees both the best and the worst of Cobblers during Swindon win

Cobblers boss Keith Curle admitted he saw both the best and the worst of his side during their battling 2-1 victory over Swindon Town on Tuesday evening.

The Cobblers were excellent in the first half-hour and warranted their two-goal lead at half-time, handed to them by Danny Rose and Christopher Missilou, after causing Swindon plenty of headaches.

However, it was much more of a struggle in the second 45 minutes as Town constantly came under the cosh and struggled to get out, although they did enough to see off their visitors.

But whilst he was happy with the first-half display, Curle did not gloss over the negative aspects of his side's performance.

"We showed resolve to see it out and get a result but in the second-half we didn't dominate possession of the ball, we didn't pass the ball simply and we didn't control possession," saud the Town boss.

"The service up to the front men was poor. We played a lot of hopeful players forward rather than thinking 'that ball isn't on so I'll come back inside and we'll keep possession until we can find the right pass to give our strikers service'.

"In the first-half we got on the ball and we moved it well and we gave them problems with our movement and our hold-up play and our link-up play. We lacked that after half-time."

Town went into the game having lost four successive league games and Curle believes that poor run played a role in their edgy second-half performance.

"Players do read the articles and they know they haven't won in three or four games and they're desperate to win and desperate to get results," he added.

"Sometimes, the hungrier you are and the more anxious you are, it becomes more difficult to do the simple things because you're so desperate to do well and you tense up.

"That's what we worked on this week. We said to the players we'll give you the shape and we'll give you the gameplan so stick to it and believe in it and in the first-half I thought we did that because we caused them a lot of problems.

"We lacked that in the second but we dug in and defended our box very well and the centre-backs defended well."