Opposition view: Tom Cleverley admits 'we lost our heads' after Plymouth's loss to Cobblers

The hosts were the better side in the first half and took 11 shots to Town’s zero but failed to convert their chances and were then put to the sword after the break. A brilliant Tom Eaves header broke the deadlock, Elliott List tapped in for 2-0 and Jordan Willis added some late gloss, with Lorent Tolaj’s red card compounding a miserable afternoon for the second-from-bottom Pilgrims.

"It was a game of two halves and they capitalised on their good half and we didn’t,” said Cleverley. “If you had told me that the game would have finished 3-0 to Northampton at half-time, after they had no shots in the first half, I wouldn’t have believed you.

"We’ve not been consistent this season and you saw the two sides to us today and we haven’t managed to deal with the setbacks. At 1-0, we’ve either lost confidence or lost our heads and today we did both so I’m really disappointed.

"We didn’t have the quality to finish off our good play in the first half and the message at half-time was more of the same but it's an unbelievable header from Tom Eaves. I wouldn’t even describe it as a half chance.

"But we have to be able to deal with that, reset and continue to do what we were doing but instead we seem to go into our shell. It’s not all about playing well and winning. It’s about rolling your sleeves up and grinding it out but we haven’t been able to do that this season and that shows because we’ve lost all of the games that we’ve gone behind in.

"I’m feeling low emotionally, about as low as I ever have been, but I enjoy the responsibility of being the person that can do something about it. That’s what drives me on and keeps me going.”