With a few days crowing over The Smogs at work and down our street, along came the chance to progress to the last sixteen of the League Cup, and with several all Prem ties in this round, a real chance to move even further. As suspected, there was a non-standard line-up to greet the crowd, many of whom had turned up on spec resulting in large queues at the cash turnstiles.

Fulop
Bardsley Noz Ferdy Collins
Edwards Leadbitter Deano Reid
Murphy Healy

The Cobblers immediately put us on the back foot, breaking with pace down both wings, and the ball hardly left our half for the first five minutes, when Murphy lopped a header to the keeper, and then on about thirteen minutes his flick almost put Carlos through. A number of free kicks were given away, on either wing and in the centre, but the shot from the last of these went way over the top off the wall. Leadbitter battled his way to the bye-line in the box, and his cross was knocked away from the near post for a corner. The corner was cleared, a throw was won by the visitors, and they burst into the box from their right and a crisp, low finish past Fulop put us a goal behind on twenty minutes.

It wasn’t against the run of play, either, and it was another five minutes before we played any sort of sustained football, and that was only fro a few minutes. Bardsley found Leadbitter and Grant moved forward to fire a foot or so wide. Healy got in a shot from the left, then Reid fought through a couple of challenges to move into the box from the left and his shot was across the face of goal. With a couple of minutes of the half remaining, we piled on a bit of pressure and saw several shots blocked in a scramble, before Deano’s volley from distance was also blocked after a cross from the right. The half ended as Healy remained rooted to the ground as the ball appeared to be there for the winning and Northampton were well worth their lead, having played pacier, more direct, and effective football.

The disappointing Healy and Edwards made way for Chops and Richardson, and the former was quickly into his stride with some good movement and some impressive control. His early cross almost found Murphy’s head, then taking a pass from Reid, saw a shot saved. Another cross just evaded Richardson, then Town got back into their stride and broke away to threaten our goal again. It seemed that every time we did something good, we followed it immediately with something bad, and many passes went to the wrong feet. With fifteen to go, Leadbitter took a hefty bang to the head, and it took a couple of minutes before play stopped to allow Stokes to replace him. A couple of minutes later, the ball just wouldn’t drop to Stokes in the box, and the resultant corner was cleared. Noz appeared to pull a hamstring and we were down to ten, then on 80 it went all wrong again. Down their right they came, moved the ball inside easily, and in went their second. Two down with five minutes left, and there didn’t really appear to be a way back.

Reid’s free-kick from the right curled into the box, there was a goalward header and Stokes knocked it in. Life at last, and one or two smiles around the ground at last. As we’d scarcely won a header all night, the events of the last minute were a novelty. Up came Fulop for a corner, but Stokes was the man with the Dave Watson-seque finish.

Extra time and we looked like the team hanging on, mainly because we were. We alternated between three and four at the back, but we still managed to go close when Murphy took a pass from Chops and cut into the box only to fire just wide.

Oh bugger, penalties, and the crowd moved to the North stand to get a better view. Chops scored, their first effort was way over, Murph scored, their second went in off the post, Stokes hit the bar, Fulop dived just over their third, Reid scored, Northampton score, Richo scored, then Fulop palmed away their fifth effort.

That meant that we won, by the way.

A poor performance, but take nothing away from the visitors, who played the neater, simpler, more effective game for long periods. We seemed always to be looking for the “champagne pass” rather than keep the ball.

Man of the Match? I’m tempted to give it to Fulop for the final, decisive, touch of the night, or to Stokes for obvious reasons, but I think that Chopra, both in attack (initially) then midfield (after the departure of Noz) probably looked more of a Prem footballer than anyone else on the night.

Thank the Lord that one’s out of the way.

Keep the faith

Sobs

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