Cobblers boss Keith Curle previews Tuesday night’s trip to Oxford United, and says he is expecting a tough test against another good side.
“Oxford are a high pressing team and we know we still need to make lots of improvements both in and out of possession,” he said.
“I think we’ve got an honest endeavour about our play, yes we are competitive and I’m not going to apologise about that. It’s how we set our team up and it’s how we want to play.
“Right from the outset we knew this season was going to be a great challenge for us as a football club, we are going to play against some good teams with some good players and we need to find a way to win.
“Sometimes we are going to have to be a pressing, attacking team and sometimes we are going to have to be prepared to sit back a little bit and wait for our opportunity.
“Whatever we do - either attacking or defending - we do it together and that’s our attitude inside the football club. We hunt the ball together and we attack and defend as a team.
“We want to score goals and play on the front foot like we did at Burton but to do that you have to have a foundation to build from. We got involved in a game of football in the second half at Portsmouth and got beat 4-0, results like that can damage confidence and first and foremost we need to make sure we are competitive in every game we play.
"That should be our foundation, it gives us the solid base to go forward from because of course we want to score goals and win matches."