Darren Carter felt the sending-off of Chris Hackett proved pivotal in the Southend defeat, on a day when ‘things conspired against’ the Cobblers.
Town were beaten 2-0 in an action-packed contest at Roots Hall and one in which Roy O’Donovan missed a penalty and Hackett was dismissed for two yellow cards after only 22 minutes.
Those setbacks, combined with Southend scoring the game’s first goal – after a shot from the edge of the box had squirmed into the path of scorer Anthony Straker – were blows from which Carter felt it was always going to be difficult to recover.
“There was a shift in the game when we missed the penalty and then had Hacks sent off, it gave them a big lift,” he said.
“Then the first goal had more than a touch of good fortune about it and it might even have been offside, I’d like to see it again.
“Things conspired against us in that spell and made it very difficult for us to get support up to our front players.
“Then, when we went two up top they put their extra man in there just to mop things up and it made it very difficult for us.
“All in all it was not the greatest day for us and things went against us quite a bit.”