Cobblers boss previews Dale clash
Cobblers boss Aidy Boothroyd is pleased to be returning to Sixfields on Saturday after three games on the road.
“I’m delighted to be back at home and if we can maintain what we’ve done at home for the rest of the season then we will be there or thereabouts,” he said.
“This is the business end of the season and we’ve really got to knuckle down now.
“Keith Hill knows this division and it will be a difficult game. It’s one of those games where it is about keeping a cool head and it might be that it takes 95 minutes to get the points out of it.
“The crowd are going to be very important in these last 16 games, especially at home.
“It is a tight league and I think if we’d been offered the position we are in currently at the start of the season we would have taken it, I know I definitely would have done.
“Because we are human beings we are all greedy and we all want a little bit more but first things first it’s about focussing on our next game.
“We never really got going against Rotherham and sometimes you just have to hold your hands up and say that they were better than us on the day.
“That happens but I don’t think last week has done us any real harm. It’s given us a bit of a bloody nose but you need that now and again.
“I think the fact that we’ve gone to Gillingham and Rotherham, two of the teams with the biggest budgets in this division, expecting to win is a massive complement to all of us.
“We’re just not ready yet to win at those places but I’m pretty sure it won’t be long before we are.
“I’ve given it some serious thought and I think I’ve come up with a way forward for us away from home.
“We’ve tried one or two different things that haven’t particularly worked but I’ve had two or three days to have a good think about it and I’ve made some notes on some things for us to work on after Rochdale.
“We are in the position we are in the league because of the quality of the players we’ve got in the squad.
“We have got a really good youth policy here and I think in Dean Snedker and Lewis Hornby we have got two players who are going to go on to bigger and better things.
“Trevor Gould and his team do a fantastic job and I think the fact that we’ve got an England player at Northampton now in Dean just emphasises that.”