Match report: Town 3 - 2 Northampton

Sep 22 2008 By Dougie Thompson

Having blasted his players in the wake of the Tranmere setback, Ternent made five changes to his starting XI, with Booth and fellow back-injury victim Andy Butler both returning after four games out in place of Keigan Parker and injured Chris Lucketti.

Jon Worthington took over from Michael Collins in central midfield, and made a telling impact, while the biggest surprises were the choice of full-backs – Goodwin, normally a midfielder, replacing Andy Holdsworth on the right and Joe Skarz for David Unsworth on the left.

Both sides created decent chances in a busy and entertaining opening first quarter, with on-loan Preston frontman Karl Hawley a particular threat to Town.

He was left unmarked to head Jason Crowe’s fifth-minute cross just over, and his 11th-minute shot from Danny Jackman’s corner was cleared off the line by Ian Craney before Matt Glennon tipped a follow-up header over as the ball was returned to the danger zone.

For Town, Craney shot wide when well positioned in the ninth minute before Flynn headed off target after Booth misdirected a header from Gary Roberts’ 15th-minute centre.

Liam Dickinson stretched the visitors’ defence after a great run by Roberts three minutes later only to be robbed by Mark Little’s sliding tackle, and when Roberts swung over the resulting corner, Nathan Clarke’s header was blocked on the line by Adebayo Akinfenwa.