Simply not good enough, condemns Nolan after Lincoln humbling
Kevin Nolan conceded his side’s performance against Lincoln City on Tuesday ‘simply wasn’t good enough’ even before Jack Vale’s contentious red card.
Playing away to a team unbeaten in 14 and sitting second in League One, Cobblers looked like a rabbit in headlights early on as Ryan Oné sprinted away to score after just 11 minutes before several chances came and went.
Fortunate to only be one behind at half-time, Ross Fitzsimons’ mistake allowed Jack Moylan to double Lincoln’s lead early in the second half and then Vale’s sending off put to rest any hope of an unlikely comeback, with late goals from Ivan Varfolomeyev and Rob Street compounding Northampton’s misery.
"It was a tough night,” admitted Nolan. “They’re a really good side and they’ve done fantastically well this season, you can’t take that away from them. They all know their roles and responsibilities and they do it consistently and that’s why there are at the top end of the table.
"Fair play to them because we were outplayed by a better outfit tonight. It’s sometimes tough to take but you’ve got to take it and you’ve got to be honest about it and what we have to do is learn from it because that’s where we want to be.
"We had some moments and some chances but we made wrong decisions and we didn’t execute well enough. I didn’t think there was too much in the game but we just didn’t put them under any real pressure.
"I say all the time that I don’t want to talk about referees, I want to talk about my team and if we’re poor, we’re poor and I’ll take that on my shoulders. We have to get better, we know that, and that’s what I’ve said to the players in the dressing room.
"That simply wasn’t good enough. We gifted them two poor goals and even when we went down to 10 men, we do 10 against 11 in training and the 11 should never score as easily as Lincoln did tonight.
"It was poor but we have to dust ourselves off because we have a big week coming up with three home games.”