Curle tells his players to 'enjoy' being on the ball after their improved showing against Pilgrims

Town were less direct and more patient during Plymouth loss
Keith Curle.Keith Curle.
Keith Curle.

Cobblers boss Keith Curle wants his players to 'enjoy' being on the ball after their improved performance against Plymouth Argyle at the weekend.

Only two teams in League One have had less possession than Town this season, while their pass success rate is the lowest in the division at just 55 per cent.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

But that improved to 72 per cent at Home Park on Saturday when the Cobblers were less direct and more patient in their play, and Curle now wants a continued improvement in that department.

"There are areas that we need to get better at in terms of the decision-making process," said Curle. "When we've got possession of the ball, we can manipulate the ball better, work the ball into areas better and give better service to the front men and also be more clinical in front of goal.

"We could have done more when we had possession and we could have maintained it better to move them around. We created dominance in midfield and we created a spare man but we didn't move them around as much as we could have done to create openings.

"We've got some clips to show the players where there were areas we could have enjoyed our time on the ball a little bit more in order to work ourselves into attacking areas with more quality."

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Speaking last week about his style of play and perhaps taking a more refined approach to League One, Curle said: "Are we a team that's going to play open, expansive football? No, not yet. Evolving into that possession-based team is something we will do as seasons progress.

"You can't just say 'right, now we're going to go and play League One football'. We've taken some players with us from League Two and we've brought in some League One players and now we need to find and create our identity within the division that suits the players we have in our squad.

"We have to make sure we're a threat to the opposition and we nullify their threats and these are all parts of the jigsaw puzzle that we're putting together. We're trying to shape a squad into a team.

"We haven't scored as many goals as we'd have liked, we haven't created as many opportunities as I'd have liked, we haven't kept the ball as much as I'd have liked and we haven't defended as well as I'd have liked."