Opposition view: 'Arguably our worst performance of the season'

Rovers were on the back foot for most of the first 35 minutes at Sixfields but came through unscathed before edging ahead through Bobby Faulkner’s header.

Having missed chances to take the lead, Cobblers then struggled to break down the away side’s compact, disciplined defence as Tranmere secured their first away win of the season.

"We had to defend our box really well and, to a man, I thought everyone worked incredibly hard,” said Whitehead, who was on media duties in place of Darrell Clarke. "It's League Two game away from home, it's not going to be pretty, but we've scored from a set-piece, we've dug deep and it's three big points.

"It's never going to be perfect and they started well, but we changed our tactical approach out of possession slightly in the first half and we've defended our goal like warriors and Bobby's popped up with a header.

"We're all learning, we’ve played better and lost, tonight was arguably our worst performance of the season, but we defended well, we scored from a set-piece and we’ll take the three points. It’s huge for us psychologically. Now we need to make sure we build on this.”