'We will have days like this' - Hogg to keep 'level head' amid 'emotional' time
Chris Hogg says he will keep a ‘level head’ and not ‘throw the toys out of the pram’ after Cobblers were beaten 2-0 by Shrewsbury on Saturday.
Town supporters were understandably frustrated during and after Saturday’s game at Croud Meadow as they watched their team labour to a hugely disappointing defeat.
"We were nowhere near the level,” said Hogg. “There's lot of emotion around a game of football and we all feel that emotion - fans, players, coaches - but I have to keep a level head.
"We're going to have days like today. I don't like them and I don't want them and I didn't see it coming because the group trained well in the week and we did a lot of really good work ahead of the game.
"You can't throw the toys out the pram after one performance but we've got to accept that's not good enough. It's not what we're about and it's not what I want my team to be about.”
Hogg contested the notion that Cobblers should have gone more direct when chasing the game.
He added: "People think urgency is lumping it in the box and sending bodies forward, and I thought the same when I watched football years and years ago, but urgency can also be about taking fewer touches and playing around a block quicker and using width earlier to move the opposition. We just never did that and the game become stuck.
"I'm not happy with today one bit and there's ways of expressing that because people get emotional and angry, but you go back to the training ground and you get to work.
"The players already know, we had some good words in the changing room afterwards and they know it's nowhere near the level, so we'll work as hard as we can, in and out of possession, and we'll refine a couple of things ready for the next game."
While Cobblers did not play well in the first half, conceding right on half-time was a huge setback.
"Conceding goals is never good at any time,” continued Hogg. “We've been pretty hard to beat in the first few games. The second one is a killer blow but even at half-time I still felt we could get back into if we were able to score the next goal.
"But if I'm honest we never looked like scoring a goal and that's what I said to the boys at the end - you have to run forward and play forward and put more pressure on the back-line.
"Their goalkeeper made a couple of saves, Owen Dale cut in and had a shot, and there were a couple of crosses, but we didn't work the goalkeeper well enough.”