Curle sees 'lots of positives' from Cobblers as change of shape works a treat in Burton victory

A delighted Keith Curle saw 'lots of positives' from Cobblers' performance during their excellent 3-1 away victory at Burton Albion on Saturday.

Town conjured up their best and most complete 90 minutes of the season as Harry Smith's brace, the first coming after just 90 seconds, and a late goal from Chris Lines secured a vital victory at the Pirelli Stadium.

Burton scored a late consolation through Lucas Akins' spot-kick but that didn't take anything away from a well-deserved three points for the Cobblers, who are up to 16th in Sky Bet League One.

"It's a really good away win and there are lots of positives we can take from the game," said Curle, who played a 3-4-3 at the Pirelli.

"Individually some of the performances were very good and achieved the standards that we set for them, and the pleasing thing was the understanding of our shape because that's something we've been working on for the last couple of days.

"We tinkered with it and we changed it but I've got to say, the attention to detail from the players has been very good because they've taken on board a lot of information. That's not to say they haven't had information previously but with the change of shape they had to get used to it.

"The only disappointing thing was their goal because I wanted a clean sheet, but the players will take the criticism, learn from it and move on and that's very pleasing."

Town were helped by a quick start at Burton with Smith scoring his first league goal of the season inside two minutes, turning in Alan Sheehan's free-kick.

"We had a reputation at set-pieces last season - I think we were the top scorers in the league," added Curle. "We still have very good delivery into the box this season but we haven't been making first contact enough.

"That's something we had to revisit and look at again and change the delivery and change the movement in the box to get away from the opposition. It's important for all centre-forwards to get goals, but even if you take the goals out of it, Harry still had a very good game."