Boothroyd says Northampton Town will go on the attack at Cheltenham

Town won 1-0 at Sixfields on Thursday night to take an advantage into the second game, at Whaddon Road on Sunday night (ko 6.45pm)..

That victory means a draw would be enough to secure a place at Wembley in the play-off final on May 18, but Boothroyd will not instruct his players to defend at all costs.

The clean sheet that was collected during the win over the Robins was the team’s third in their past four games and if they pick up a fourth in five they will progress to the final.

Boothroyd, though, will send the team out on the front foot and look to score the goal that would mean Cheltenham would have to score twice, something they have only managed to do once in their past eight matches.

“The first leg is quite nervy and jumpy but in the second leg you know what’s expected of you,” he said.

“They’ve got to come and try to win it and so that might mean they’ll change their formation or change their thought processes.

“But for us we’ve got to make sure we play to win and not to not lose, if that makes sense.

“I’ve said to the players we’ve got to go after them. We’ll make sure we go for it.

“Unless you’re really good at setting up to defend then you usually end up getting scored on and I think you’ve got to try to win every game you play.

“If we sit back and invite them onto us then we’ll be asking for trouble.”

Boothroyd accepts his team probably should have won the first leg by a greater margin, but was quick to praise his players, who produced one of their best performances of the season to draw first blood in the tie.

“I felt we had the possession and territory and we dominated the game but we only won 1-0,” he said.

“I’ve been in this situation before and I know we have to do our talking on the pitch.

“I was really proud of the lads on Thursday night, I thought they gave it everything and we’re going to need them to give it everything in the second leg now as well.”