Nolan 'demanding more' from Fosu after 'fantastic' performance against Exeter

Fosu started the season impressively but his form has been up and down since, not helped by injuries. He struggled to have much impact in games against Barnsley and Wrexham recently but was instrumental during the draw at Exeter, particularly when producing a lovely piece of skill to create Dara Costelloe’s first half goal.

"I was really pleased with Tariqe,” said Nolan. “He had two opportunities, one in the first half and one in the second half, and I was expecting the net to bulge, I must admit, but he was absolutely fantastic today and it was lovely skill for the goal.

"That's what we've come to expect from Tariqe but we've got to see more of it and I'm demanding more of it from him. I keep telling him that it's no good just switching it on and switching it off.

"But I thought his energy and his work-rate out of possession today was great and then on the ball he was good. We need to keep getting him into those positions and we need him to start punishing sides because I felt he should have been coming away from the game with at least one goal.”

Despite Fosu’s performance though, Cobblers were unable to beat Exeter as Sonny Cox grabbed a late leveller. The result leaves Town still too close to the bottom four for comfort, not that Nolan’s focusing on that.

He added: "I don't know where we are in the league. We just have to control the controllables and that's the how I'm going to be throughout the season. Keep looking up and keep trying to get closer to the team above us and keep clocking up points.

"We can all be disappointed and we wanted three points at Exeter and they were in our grasp. We should have been more than 1-0 up with the opportunities we had and that's where we need to get ruthless and I've got to be ruthless with the lads.

"But we'll keep focusing on ourselves and keep concentrating and I'm sure we can keep climbing the table."