AIDY BOOTHROYD paid tribute to the Cobblers’ powers of persistence as they overcame AFC Wimbledon at Sixfields with Alex Nicholls’ fifth of the season and a Chris Hackett wonder goal.
Town ran out 2-0 winners to complete back-to-back victories and back-to-back clean sheets and go eighth in the npower League Two table.
Boothroyd felt the result was a just reward for his team’s dominance in the first half and was pleased to see learn from the errors they made in losing at Plymouth Argyle seven days again when in a similarly commanding position.
“We knew it was going to be a tough game even with the goals they had conceded in their previous away games because I’d seen the tape of their game at Southend and they were good in that game,” he said.
“If you’re going to be successful you’ve got to be persistent and we certainly were that.
“The clean sheet is the most important thing for me because we’re always going to score goals with the team we have and what we can bring into a game from the bench.
“It was important they didn’t score and that we made our pressure count.
“We dominated in the first half and the good thing is we are creating chances and scoring goals. This team will score lots of goals, I’m sure of that.
“At the moment we’re still learning and still making mistakes, but as long as we make different mistakes, then that’s fine.”
Wimbledon manager Terry Brown felt his team were undermined by the loss to injury of influential central defender Dale Bennett but also felt his team were not strong enough under the ‘aerial assault’ he predicted.
“Losing Dale Bennett at half-time was a big blow,” he said. “He’s a big, strong player and very important to us winning the ball. But it was still disappointing that too many players’ heads went down after the first goal. “In other areas of the park we did okay but you have to be able to cope with ball into the box and we didn’t do that today.
“We’ve got squad here which won’t change for next Saturday so we need to defend much better than that.”