What Kevin Nolan said to Cobblers that inspired impressive response after cup disappointment
Kevin Nolan believes the key to bouncing back to winning ways against Mansfield on Saturday was not allowing his players, or himself, to ‘dwell’ on their disappointing FA Cup exit at Oldham.
Cobblers turned in arguably their worst performance of the season when crashing to defeat at the League Two Latics last weekend, falling two goals behind inside four minutes and rarely threatening a comeback.
But Nolan made full use of a week on the training pitch to go back to basics and lift spirits, and his work paid dividends when goals from Jack Perkins and Tom Eaves saw Cobblers fight back from a goal down to beat Mansfield 2-1, ending a three-game losing run in the process.
"It's been a tough period,” admitted Nolan. “Three defeats in a row is tough and I don't take them lightly, trust me, but I know what it takes to get out of those difficult moments because I've been in those situations a lot in my playing career and in my coaching career as well
"I'm not a dweller, I never have been. I don't think you can afford to be in football because you'll be caught in a rut, so we quickly put Oldham to bed on Monday and then the work started on the training pitch.
"We worked on what we did wrong last weekend and how we could go about fixing it and make it better and make it easier for everyone and they executed the game plan perfectly against Mansfield. If we go 1-0 up with Cam McGeehan’s header, everyone's saying it's a brilliant first half but they broke on us and Rhys (Oates) took his goal very well. They are always a threat on the break with the players they have.
"But I was delighted with the output of the lads and how they executed the game plan and their character as well. I know they have character but I'm delighted that they proved it to everyone. I'm really enjoying it here and I enjoyed the week leading up to the game.”
Cobblers played three different formations in the win over Mansfield, starting out 3-4-3, then going to 3-5-2 before finishing in a 4-3-3.
"It shows how adaptable we are to go from a 3-4-3 to a 4-3-3 and all these lads know their roles and responsibilities and all the formations we play,” Nolan added. "We played three or four formations and can go from 3-5-2 to 3-4-3 to 4-5-1 to 4-3-3 and it just seemed seamless on the pitch and that's great because it shows they're listening and taking all the information on board in training and in the analysis sessions that we do.
"It was a very poor performance last week but the lads had to make the atmosphere today and they got the crowd right behind them. It's up to us to spark them into life and the lads did that. I was calm in stoppage-time because I know these boys can go to 105, 106 minutes because we've done all the work and they saw the game out wonderfully well.”