Opposition view: Challinor accepts Stockport County were 'fortunate' during 'tight' win over Cobblers

Stockport County manager Dave Challinor admitted his side were ‘fortunate’ to lead at half-time during Saturday’s ‘tight’ League Two encounter with Northampton at Edgeley Park.

Antoni Sarcevic capped off a well-worked move to give County a 33rd-minute lead but the visitors had edged the contest up to that point and missed chances at both 0-0 and 1-0.

Another opportunity or two went begging early in the second-half before Ryan Johnson’s header took the wind out of Northampton’s sails and effectively killed off any chance of a comeback.

“It’s always important to get back to winning ways,” said Challinor. “I think when you look in the grand scheme of things last week we thought was an opportunity (against Walsall in the FA Cup) but you move on and today was massively important.

"It was a big three points. We changed to a back four due to circumstances and Northampton have pretty much been 4-3-3 all season but they tweaked their shape. We felt it was the best way to go with what we had and it would give us some control but it didn’t always work out that way and at times we left the middle of the pitch vacant which caused us problems and (Sam) Hoskins and (Mitch) Pinnock looked a big threat in the transition.

“I don’t think we were great, I don’t think it was a great game. I thought we looked edgier than they did. We wanted to make this like a cup tie and play forward, play in their half and put them on the back foot, but we didn’t do that and we allowed them to counter-attack so we were fortunate to lead at half-time.

“Second-half we were more secure in those things but it was a tight game between two teams that I suppose have an awful lot to play for so there’s going to be a little bit of edginess.

“The players know the importance of it and I suppose Northampton’s perspective is maybe about coming here and not losing but for us we know how important the three points are.”