'It annoys the life out of me' - Curle furious with Cobblers' defending at Walsall

Keith Curle offered a scathing assessment of his side's defending for all three goals during their second-half collapse at Walsall on Saturday, saying one in particular 'annoyed the life' out of him.

Leading through Callum Morton's brace at half-time, Town fell to pieces in the second-half and succumbed to a fourth straight defeat in all competition, dropping out of the play-off positions in the process.

Walsall's first goal came 11 minutes after the restart when Josh Gordon headed in a cross from former Cobblers defender Shay Facey.

"We know with the shape we play that sometimes you will get exposed in wide areas but our basic setup from a throw-in was wrong," lamented Curle. "They're allowed to get the ball in, there's a slight block and then they put the ball in.

"Were we ready for the cross? And then you can't have somebody five foot 10 beating a six foot three centre-back in the middle of your goal."

With 13 minutes remaining, Walsall drew level as Lloyd Jones conceded a cheap foul on the left and Danny Guthrie's resulting free-kick somehow beat everyone and nestled into the far corner of the net.

"The free-kick is probably the most annoying goal because we let players have a run on us and have a free header in the middle of our goal, which is something we've been very good at previously," continued Curle.

"It annoys the life out of me because we get the line, we get set and then we think we're just going to deal with it or it'll land on Charlie's head.

"No, we've got to stop people making runs into our box. It's at a height and in that position where we're not sure if the goalkeeper is coming. Then he stays and the ball takes a bounce and goes into the net. There's elements within that where we were wrong."

It was no better three minutes into stoppage-time when Town needlessly lost possession near halfway and Walsall broke with Rory Holden grabbing a last-gasp winner.

"It's very, very simple," added Curle. "It was our throw-in in their half playing away from home but we didn't get our setup right and the next thing you know we're playing the ball backwards, then we're playing it inside and then we don't try and spin it down the channel.

"Then we try and find a pass that was never on. These are all simple decision-making and it's the horrible side of the game that you need in your team."