McGowan not prepared to accept Town's 'average' start to the season

Defender Aaron McGowan is not prepared to accept Cobblers' 'average' start to the season.

Most teams have now hit the 10-game mark in Sky Bet League Two, the point at which the table begins to take shape.

Cobblers are 10th with 15 points from their 10 fixtures, but they have won only one of their last five and were beaten 2-0 by Sutton United on Saturday.

"We need to go back to basics and what we were doing successfully in the first six or seven games of the season because we're not doing that right now," said McGowan.

"That needs to change quickly. Yes, we're 10th and it's a decent start, but if you accept that then you accept being average and we all want to be higher in the table.

"The gaffer has spoken about it and we know where we want to be and where we want to end up this season so if we want to admit that it's been a good start, that's not good enough for me."

Asked what they have stopped doing so well, McGowan added: "I think we're conceding silly goals. Two or three weeks ago we had the best defence in the country so we won't go overboard, but we need to start putting the ball in the net and we also need to stop conceding poor goals.

"It shows how quickly it can change, but there's no point going overboard and saying we're a million miles away.

"There are no easy games in this league. Sutton at home, people might look at it and go 'oh, they've only just come up' but you saw how good they were.

"We need to roll our sleeves up and go back to being the dogged type of team we were earlier in the season because we've got to have pride in not conceding goals and that's when we were at our best."