Anthony Limbrick admitted that missing a host of first-half chances had cost his side.

“I thought we created numerous chances in the first half an hour.

“Jake Hessenthaler had a good chance, Matt Green had a good chance and James Hanson had a chance.

“You could probably argue that, in the last four or five weeks, that’s the most chances we have created in a half of football – but you don’t get any points for that.

“When you create that many chances early on, you need to take one of them because you know that a side like Northampton are very organised and are good from set-plays.

“We needed to defend them better. Not scoring the first goal really hindered us.

“I thought it was quite a sloppy second goal as well. For us to go in 2-0 down at half-time was not just reward for our performance,” he added.