Rose is up for the fight after impressing in Oxford victory

Danny Rose is – quite literally – up for the fight as he looks to play his part in trying to keep Cobblers in Sky Bet League One this season.

The 27-year-old capped off one of his best performances in claret by assisting Sam Hoskins’ winning goal during Tuesday’s vital 1-0 victory over Oxford United.

Rose has been in and out of the team since Jon Brady took charge but he hopes his display in midweek will be enough to keep his starting berth for a huge game at AFC Wimbledon this weekend.

“I don’t mind not starting games,” said Rose. “I said to the gaffer a couple of days ago that I’m happy to help the team out however I can, whether that’s starting or coming on as a sub.

“I feel I did well on Tuesday and hopefully I’ll be in the mix on Saturday because that’s another big game.

“I think that (Tuesday’s performance) is what I’m all about – getting involved with the centre-halves and having a bit of a fight with them.

“I know I’m not the biggest but I don’t mind getting into a battle. I just want to help the team and bring others into play like Sammy, who took his goal brilliantly.

“It was needed after Saturday. You could tell the disappointment was there in training on Monday but we trained really well and we just said to each other we need to play more because we have good players in the squad.

“I think it was a massive win for us after the disappointment of Saturday and the reaction was absolutely magnificent from every one of us and I think it was a well-deserved three points.”

Despite their recent success against mid-table and top-half sides, Cobblers have not won any of their last five matches versus teams in the current bottom six.

Rose added: “Maybe we tighten up a little bit because they are big games but we need to get out of that mindset and get out of it quickly because the games are running out.

“I think if we can beat Wimbledon, we’ll be in a good place. But we’re in a good place now because our performance on Tuesday was brilliant and we need to take that into the weekend.

“I think it’s just about playing a bit more. We’ve got some good players in this side, which is something the gaffer said to us, and we know we can play.

“I think we showed that on Tuesday. The pitch was in better condition for us to play and I thought we were decent going forward and created a lot of chances and might have scored two or three on another day.

“But now it’s important to try and make it back-to-back wins. We can go there full of confidence and if we go there and play like we did against Oxford, I think we’ll be OK.

“It’s a big game, a six-pointer, but we can go into with confidence and all guns blazing.”