Powell hoping for more starts after impressing in Crewe victory

Having scored one and created the other during Saturday’s 2-0 victory over Crewe Alexandra, Cobblers winger Daniel Powell hopes his impressive performance at Gresty Road will convince manager Keith Curle to hand him more starts.
Daniel Powell has only started five league games since Keith Curle was appointed in OctoberDaniel Powell has only started five league games since Keith Curle was appointed in October
Daniel Powell has only started five league games since Keith Curle was appointed in October

The 27-year-old has become a bit-part player this season, so much so that Saturday’s game at Crewe was his first start since December 15 and only seventh in all competitions since Curle was appointed in October.

But he justified his manager’s decision with a match-winning display, heading in Town’s opener on 28 minutes and then supplying the cross for John-Joe O’Toole’s second four minutes later.

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“I’m not known for my headers but I think that one was harder to miss! And then John-Joe got on the end of the second one, I thought it was a good ball in,” said Powell.

“I felt it was just a good all-round team performance. They had a lot of the ball so we were doing a lot of chasing in the second-half but I thought the team worked really hard and we got our rewards.”

Curle revealed afterwards that he picked Powell due to his impressive performances in a couple of recent behind-closed-doors friendlies, and now the former MK Dons man is hopeful his starring role at Gresty Road will lead to more starts as Town aim to continue their recent good form against Exeter City on Saturday.

“We have a big game this week,” he added. “If we can have a good week in training, we’ll take Exeter on. I’m always looking for a starting place and I always work hard in training so it was nice to get on the pitch against Crewe.

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“We’re on a good run at the moment and confidence is high. I think the next few games are winnable as well so if we can just take one match at a time, we can keep looking up.

“We want to get it right at home. We’ve been so good away from home for the last few weeks and if we can take the confidence from that into our home games, I think we can go on a good run.”