Opposition view: Duff felt there was one big difference between Cobblers and Wycombe in Sixfields tie

Cobblers took control of the tie with a strong first half display as Kyle Edwards finished off a slick counter-attack before Tyrese Fornah’s first-time shot squirmed through the hands of goalkeeper Mikki Van Sas.

Wycombe probed in the second period but found no way through as Junior Quitirna missed their best chance while a strong penalty shout – ‘stonewall’ in Duff’s view – was waved away by the officials, meaning Cobblers booked their spot in the last 16.

"I’m disappointed,” admitted Duff. “We picked a team that we thought was strong enough to give a much better account than that. I can’t be too harsh on the players because they’ve been really good for me for a while now but I thought we showed a little bit of vulnerability.

"The spaces were too big in the first half and ultimately they had better athletes in their team than we did but we didn’t pass the ball either. If you don’t keep the ball and if they have better athletes, it’s not a great mix and it all adds up to a disappointing night.

"We had four players who started on Saturday and they had four who started on Saturday so it wasn’t a case that they picked a much stronger team and we made wholesale changes. Other than Arthur (Gregory), every one of those players who started would class themselves as first-team players.

"It looked pretty fluid when we changed the team around in earlier rounds but it didn’t look fluid at any point tonight. We turned the ball over so many times and you just can’t do that because it becomes a game of transitions and that’s what they did well.

"Mikki will be disappointed with the second goal because we’re still in it if we go into half-time at 1-0 and there wasn’t much in the second half. We had a stonewall penalty that wasn’t given, which would have made it interesting, and Junior had a good chance that he should have done better with, but we didn’t do enough to win the game tonight.”