Colin Calderwood wants Northampton to show some ‘self-respect’ after heavy loss

Interim manager Colin Calderwood said he could not defend Northampton’s performance in the 4-1 defeat at Mansfield and that his players needed to show some self-respect.

It was a fourth league defeat in a row and a seventh in eight games as the Cobblers’ relegation plight worsened.

“We need to use self-respect as the guideline to where we go from here,” he said.

“There is a lot of fear in the players at the moment as they can’t imagine themselves having a good game.

“It is really hard to defend that performance and our overall competitiveness.

“We are certainly a shell of an aggressive team and it shows when you come up against a team on the front foot.

“We have had disappointments here before but not by that margin.

“No one would have envisaged we’d have been in this position at Christmas time, but we look as if we are running flat at the minute.

“We contributed to their early goal and then again at the start of the second half.

“We lacked energy as a group.

“We lost the plot and the game became too open. Mansfield ran hard and well and produced good moments in our final third.”

Will Evans put the Stags ahead after only five minutes from Frazer Blake-Tracy’s long through ball.

And, after Liam Roberts had crucially denied Cameron McGeehan with his legs just before the break after Stags had failed to put away any of several chances, Evans struck again in the 48th minute from Lucas Akins’ pull-back to ease pressure.

Akins then scored the third in the 62nd minute, following up quickly after Jon Russell’s effort had come back off the crossbar.

McGeehan pulled one back with 17 minutes left, turning home Kyle McAdam’s pass, but Akins had the final say in the third added minute, again following up well after keeper Lee Burge’s great save had denied Evans his hat-trick.

That made it six league games unbeaten for the Stags to alleviate their own relegation worries, but boss Nigel Clough said: “You can never feel confident in this league.

“I don’t think 50 points will be enough – it could be 52-53 this season looking at the table.

“I don’t think you can rule anyone out so we need to keep putting more points on the board as early as we can as everyone else is picking up points.

“I think six of our next eight games are away from home, so it’s going to be tough.

“I don’t think our performance necessarily warranted four goals today.

“I wasn’t particularly enamoured with our performance overall, especially in the first half.

“We have played much better than that this season and drawn, and even lost.

“But the second goal settled us down and we showed a bit more of what we are about, scoring three good goals and should have had more.

“I am disappointed we conceded – we should have had a clean sheet today.”