Encouraged Curle confident the goals will start to flow for Cobblers

On Saturday, for the third time in the past two weeks, Keith Curle and the Cobblers returned home from an away trip with positives to cling to.

Following a limp midweek performance at Blackpool, Town were much-improved against in-form and free-scoring Accrington Stanley to pick up a valuable away point.

In the first-half, they were by far the better side and had a string of promising situations without creating anything clear-cut as Jack Sowerby, Fraser Horsfall and Danny Rose all went close. They also won nine corners.

But their goal drought goes on, now at nearly 300 minutes. Sowerby was inches away from ending it late on at Accrington, screwing narrowly wide via a deflection, but it was still a point gained and a third clean sheet in five games.

"I think the pleasing thing is that you could name four or five players who had opportunities in and around the penalty box," said Curle ."It's important to get numbers forward and spread the chances around.

"Goals will come if we keep doing that, but it's also important that if we're not able to break the deadlock, we keep a clean sheet at the other end.

"I said to the players in the dressing room that it's a foundation for us to build off because we looked solid in defence and were a threat up front.

"You've got to give Accrington credit as well for some of their defending and some of their blocks on the line to deny goal scoring opportunities. That's part of their make-up and part of their DNA and that's what we're trying to recreate.

"We want to be a team that creates opportunities but also defends vigorously as well and I thought we showed that."

A sign of Town's impressive first-half dominance at Accrington came on 27 minutes when home boss John Coleman felt the need to make both a tactical and personnel change to stem the tide.

Now, Cobblers just need a bounce of the ball to go their way.

"You've got to earn that slice of luck and you earn it by keep knocking on the door," Curle added. "We very quickly identified that the diagonal ball could cause them problems and that affected them and made them change their personnel.

"They changed their shape due to the dominance we had and then it was a case of responding to their change of shape but still having a platform and a springboard to go and be creative.

"That's credit and testament to the players because they took on the information and we nullified a team that has been free-flowing and free-scoring and limited them to very few opportunities."