Clive Platt believes the Cobblers’ thrashing at the hands of rock-bottom Barnet was a ‘harsh reminder’ of the realities of life in football’s basement division.
And the towering striker thinks Friday night’s defeat proved how difficult it is going to be for the side to maintain a top-half challenge this season, and that it will act as a reminder that the team cannot afford to get ahead of themselves when they start to win games in npower League Two.
Town were routed 4-0 at Underhill by a team without a win to their name this season in any competition, with manager Aidy Boothroyd commenting that his players made their Barnet counterparts ‘look like superstars.’
It was a verdict few who witnessed the game would argue with, and although the general consensus was the Northampton were the better side in the first half, Platt felt they still did not do enough during the first 45 minutes to support any claims for something from the fixture.
“We’ve been dissecting the performance and we were talking about it a lot in the changing room afterwards,” he said. “I think we saw the harsh realities of the league in this game.
“If we thought we’d made it after a great result against Exeter we well and truly knew we haven’t after Friday night.
“I didn’t think we played great in the first half but we had the better chances – we had three or four chances that on another day we would have put away.
“In the second half we didn’t create anything, we didn’t put enough pressure on the ball and if you give them enough time on the ball they are going to start to create chances.
“The first goal gave them a massive relief and after that they started to play with a lot more freedom. We just couldn’t cope with it.”
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