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" I am not happy today I have to say, we were very upset at half-time with the players. We thought that our first-half performance, after what we thought was a terrific start in the first ten or fifteen minutes, was poor. We got the ball into some fantastic areas and when we should be delivering balls into the box and giving our strikers something to go at we didn't. We have got two strikers up there now and they thrive on service, we got none of that.
" Then after that we started making poor decisions with our play, there was no belief in our passing, we didn't ask enough questions of Northampton and in the end we surrendered what we thought was a good start. We thought that we had them on the back foot early on in the game and then after that we found it tough to get any sort of attacking play going. We are disappointed, it is late now, we have only just finished talking about what we think, we have had some few harsh words to say in the dressing-room.
" We have got players there that are really comfortable on the ball and we have got people that can deliver from good areas. Today, for some reason after the opening quarter of an hour we want to stop doing that. Why do we want to stop doing that?, why do we want to stop passing the ball?, why do we want to stop getting it wide?, why do we want to stop putting it in the areas where they didn't have any full-backs?, where they were trying to push their wing-backs on.
" Then when we do get in areas why don't we put a ball in the box? Do you know what, I don't know, and that is what I have asked the players, why don't you do that? Then, because we keep giving the ball away, obviously then Northampton who aren't a bad side given the ball, most sides will be decent if you keep giving them the ball. They have a period of play where they are putting us on the back-foot. "
" I think that we are lucky to come in, they didn't cause us too many problems to be honest in the first-half. I thought that they were quite poor too, it must have been a poor game to watch. We surrendered the encouraging start that we had and we didn't pick it up until, we picked it up in the second-half slightly better.
" We played with a bit more fizz and a bit more buzz but we still didn't cause enough problems in an attacking sense.The game has not changed for hundreds and hundreds of years, if you get in wide areas and you put quality balls in then the strikers will get on the end of them, or it gives them a chance of getting on the end of them. We are not doing that at the moment and it is a concern.
" It tells you that we need better, now what we don't want to do is to dispose of all our players and give them the hard word. What we are saying to them though is that they make the decisions, the players actually make the decision on who plays, who keeps their place, who gets dropped, who we bring in. Because if they are under-performing then I have got to bring in better players, and today they under-performed.
" They have not given us that quality that we are looking for, now they can't do it for too many games because that then, they are saying that they are not good enough for this level and that I will have to bring somebody is because they can't do it. They make those decisions by their performances, not me, I don't want to change the squad particularly but I want a better squad than I have seen today.
" If we lose games and we don't pick up points then the relegation zone is where we will end up. We are not going to go and hit it with doom and gloom though, we have said what we had to say to the players and I would expect a positive response on Monday. They will get one from me, we have had a debate in there now and again it has been largely one way. "
" We have to do something about it but I am not going to talk about relegation obviously because that is just a situation we are at the moment. What I am talking about though is improved performances, that is probably the poorest one since I have taken over. That is what I am not going to accept, if we play better than that then we will get points, if we play like that more often then we won't get points and everybody will be talking about that word.
" I am still absolutely delighted that I took the job, I have got to face everything head on haven't I. I can't be doom and gloom when we get beat and I can't be jumping through hoops when we win. It is a long-term thing and this is what I want to do, it is what we are all about. We will be as ruthless with the players as we need to be, we will be as ruthless as we need to be to improve performances. It is not just as easy to say that I don't want him, him, him, him and him because they are on the payroll.
" If other clubs don't take them then it makes the finance side of it really difficult, but there are players here that we think aren't playing as well as we would like, and that goes throughout the whole club. If we can bring in players better than them then we will do it, if we can't then we have to work with what we have got. Just being ruthless for the sake of it though doesn't just work in football.
" I think that when you are putting those statistics to me (one goal in the last fifteen games from a forward other than Danny Graham), then it is an area that I will be focusing on. When I am thinking about them then even a silly man would say that we need to do better. We have got strikers at the club though that everybody is clamouring to play. There are a couple of strikers on the bench there, but if they don't score goals then they are putting themselves under pressure.
" Again, the players themselves make the decisions, now if we have got strikers that aren't scoring and we get the supply into them then we have to do something about that. To be fair today though I thought that the supply from wide areas was poor, and that is something that we have to look at as well. I can confirm that he (Karl Hawley) was at the reserve game, he is a big friend of Chris Lumsdon and he sat four seats away from me. So make what you want of that, but he was at the game. "