Opposition view: City boss McCall argues Bantams deserved more from Cobblers defeat

The Bantams are chasing promotion from Sky Bet League One but have struggled to replicate their efforts from last season when they went the whole of the campaign undefeated at home, leaving them off the pace of title-challenging trio Wigan, Shrewsbury and Blackburn.

And their hopes of reeling in those teams suffered another setback on Saturday when they were beaten 2-1 by Northampton. John-Joe O’Toole’s header put Town ahead at half-time before Chris Long’s well-taken second goal secured victory, with Paul Taylor’s late free-kick only a consolation.

“There is clear disappointment after this one, but we have to keep pushing,” said McCall afterwards. “We started poorly but I felt we got better as the first-half went on.

“We tried to be more ‘up and at them’ in the second period, and we put Knight-Percival up front to try and give us a better chance to contest the ball. He gave us a bit of a physical presence up front and given the chances we made in the second period, we perhaps merited a point in the end.

“We’ve given away two poor goals today though. Getting the first goal today was going to be important, so losing a goal from a set-piece just before half-time was clearly a blow.

“We knew they would be a threat from set-pieces but we have to stay with our men. Their second goal comes from a bit of an error from us as well. We have to stop shooting ourselves in the foot and giving soft goals away.

“We know we are struggling a bit with injuries at the moment but we have to put a halt to conceding these simple goals.

“That second goal has obviously been a big hit against us but we still had our chances. We’ve probably created enough chances in the second period to deserve a draw, but the second goal we conceded was poor and left us with a little bit too much to do.

“There wasn’t perhaps the greatest quality out there today but the lads kept going and going.”