'We need to find a spark' - Calderwood previews daunting Cardiff City trip
Cobblers’ inability to recover from conceding the first goal is something that will need to be ‘addressed’ and rectified, admits interim boss Colin Calderwood.
Cobblers have lost nine straight games and in six of them they have gone behind in the first 30 minutes and shown very little ability to get back into the game. The latest example came against Doncaster last Saturday when Town crumbled once behind to Elliot Lee’s 50th minute opener.
“The first half was a fairly normal performance but the second half is determined by the opening goal and the ease of it is the most irritating thing,” said Calderwood. "The lads felt and looked a little bit deflated, and they probably were, but they kept going, you can’t say otherwise, but something we need to address going forward is the ability to come back to win games.
"It’s a determining factor in lots of successful teams. Ideally, you score the first goal and you win, but it becomes more and more important as you go up the divisions to be able to recover from conceding the first goal.
"It maybe evens itself out towards the bottom of the league, there’s probably no great disparity between quite a few teams, but the ones who end up doing well show the ability to come from behind and score late goals to win games. Those are big indicators for good teams – you’re able to win games in various states and various ways.”
Cobblers will have to produce an almighty upset to avoid a 10th straight loss when they head across the Welsh border to face promoted Cardiff this weekend.
"We’ve not set any targets other than just to win the game on Saturday,” Calderwood added. "You’ve got to have an attitude to go and win, be enthusiastic for training, which the boys have shown, and as we edge towards the end of the season, we need to find a spark and get a couple of results.
"You’ve got to win the next one so we might as well try to do that on Saturday, but obviously Cardiff are very strong and they’ve probably ended up where everyone expected. There’s no surprise they are in that position but they’ve done well and they’ve built from within a little bit and used players from their academy.
"We’ve not picked a team yet but it’ll be determined by how they train this week and then we’ll select a team on Thursday morning and get out and do our work in preparing for the game.”