'Warrior' Guthrie played through injury to help Cobblers keep another clean sheet at Newport County

Jon Guthrie played through the pain barrier to ensure the Cobblers kept another clean sheet against Newport County on Tuesday evening.

The influential defender starred at both ends of the pitch as Town clinched a hard-fought 1-0 victory to move up to third in Sky Bet League Two.

Described as a 'warrior' by his manager afterwards, Guthrie took a heavy knock early in the second-half and required treatment before battling through the rest of the game at Rodney Parade.

"I'd like to think I'll be fit for the weekend," said the 28-year-old. "I'll see how it is over the next couple of days.

"It was more of a bang, knee on knee, so it was a sore one but it wasn't too bad and I managed to carry on which was the main thing because I didn't want to come off.

"We had the clean sheet to keep intact so there was no chance of me coming off! But I'm glad to have got through it and hopefully over the next couple of days it'll settle down and I'm sue I will be fine for Saturday."

Not only did Guthrie spearhead another impressive defensive effort, he also scored the game's only goal with an emphatic finish late in the first-half.

That was his third goal of the season, placing him at the top of Northampton's scoring charts.

He added: "I can't really remember how the ball got to me but I just saw it land in front of me and there were a lot of bodies around me so I thought I'd go high and hope it goes in and obviously it did so I'm buzzing with that.

"You know when Mitch or Hosk are over the ball, their set-piece delivery is really good so if you keep getting into the right positions, the ball will come to you sooner rather than later.

"That's what I do. I just keep making the runs and I know it'll come to me eventually because their delivery is so good and fortunately it fell to me tonight."