Ref. tactical approach and game management:  "When someone keeps making the same mistake over and over, it's not a mistake. It's a habit".

Repeating the same thing over and over and expecting something different is insanity.

[What on earth was he doing bringing on Joe I. in the last 2 minutes?]

I feel for the 1650 Cobblers supporters who travelled to Sheffield in hope only to watch us park the bus once more.  It is dull negative football that produces a shock win occasionally (e.g. Oxford) but generally ends in defeat.  Page said that he watched Sheff Utd v Oldham (I assume on video) where they also had 10 men behind the ball only to concede late on. So, does this manager learn nothing?  This is happening time and time again. There is a sensible balance between attack & defence that has to be found when playing away from home but Page shows no ideas. What on earth was he doing bringing on Joe I. in the last 2 minutes?

Why did he bring a striker on when we are 1-0 down? Should have brought on another defender, right?

Sounds good, but what does Mr Page think? Not sure about Anderson he only has one admirer on here and he has gone on walk about!

He started today on fire, roasting their left back twice and has a decent cross. Excellent work rate too (not unlike Gilligan!) but goes missing too often. However, a much better option than Gorre and better than anyone else who can play right wing (except maybe Hoskins but he needs to be playing more central IMO) so needs to start.

We'll Jon-joe and McCourt haven't exactly been pulling up trees recently and Taylor's form is up and down. If fit I would assume boateng will replace o'toole and if available wylde will replace Anderson. It's still frustrating to see Hoskins on the right, I'd drop Rico or revs and play Sam as number 10.

Think you're right, Revs to be dropped for Wylde who will move out left, Ando wide right and Hoskins playing behind Rico with Taylor/JJOT and Boateng sitting.

Bit disappointed with your comments Steve(& Insider) so here is my tuppence worth on the game!

Poor old Page lost by a narrow margin: cue the usual armchair suspects who rose up as one. Interesting enough the few comments from those at the game have actually contradicted these critics. By and large BoN comments are pretty spot on as the games turning point was their goalies save to thwart Taylor's splendid free kick! IMO for the rest of the game we lost our shape with a series of poor clearances and nobody in Midfield/Forwards able to hold on to the ball. Potter showed his limitations as did Richards and Revell. Hoskins apart from a brief spell in the first 30 odd minutes did little to impress. I actually thought that Anderson did ok 1st half but went a bit awol 2nd. I thought by and large Page's tactics were ok ; after all he was minutes away from an unlikely point. Smith hardly troubled and all the defence played well, very well in fact. They collectively deserved a point from this game. In the end our downfall was caused by poor passing out of defence which invited them to practically camp in our penalty area for the last 5/10 minutes. Suffice to say it was scored by a midfielder who rarely ever scores. JJOT was the pick of our midfield and showed "glimpses" of his power and authority in midfield. As for Taylor he had a good game 1st half - not so evident in the 2nd, but his superb free kick might well have saved us. Some of his passing was pretty good too, but a bit like Anderson he does tend to disappear at times. He was the only Cobbler's player I can remember to have a meaningful shot on goal. Please Nyatanga and Zakuani do not head the ball straight back to the oppo as you did in the last 10min of the game apart from that you did fine.

Pages tactics - would have worked if those up front were more effective but they weren't and that was that. As for his substitutions; no quality on the bench to remedy the deficiencies - Beautyman on for Rico was a negative as personally would not have even bothered! As for Joe I' he should have been on sooner for Hoskins but imo lacks the necessary quality to effect the game; harsh I know. Apologies to his fan club!

Summary - guided by their Media outlets and by own friends at the game is that we played ok particularly defensively and might well have taken an unlikely point. Until Page remedies the midfield and forward failings we will continue to experience similar match outcomes. However just by looking at SU performance and how we contained them for so long perhaps we just need 2 or 3 reasonable and affordable L1 standard players; one in midfield and two up front.

e&oe.

Agree with most of this. While the two CBs clearances did often go straight to the opposition midfielders, both JJOT and Taylor were never there to pick up the second ball, not sure if that's down to lack of mobility/speed or if the Sheff Utd midfielders were just better and more aware. It was incredibly frustrating though knowing that any sort of clearance was coming straight back at us within seconds.

At the game Baldy.
It struck me today that we must be the only team in all four divisions whose two central defenders are quicker than the two central midfielders and the two strikers ahead of them.
I hope Page is deliberately playing two banks of four sitting so deep because he knows we haven't got the pace needed to press high and not out-of choice, and will try and address the problem in January.

Should have played Hoskins off either Rico or Revell today to win their flick ons. They must be the slowest strike force in the league.

[Hooper is going back to Vale]

Don't forget that Hooper is going back to Vale, and Zakuani is going on African Cup of Nations duty for a month.

Thank f*** for that

We've got Iaciofano, would love to see him get a start.

He is totally different to Rico/Revell, so we do have another pairing up top we could go with but RP stubbornly seems to be trying to break this horror run with the same players/formations/tactics.

Genuine question: Would you also love to see an 18 year old Prem youngster with no first team appearances given a go?

[isolated striker is not the recipe for success at home]

The poster that said we set up like the away side has it spot on - 2 defensive midfielders and a lone, isolated striker is not the recipe for success at home. I liked the way that Keith hill identified our weakness down the right and stuck Henderson on Phillips and got bunney to overlap constantly which meant that Hoskins had to track back - Phillips was so narrow all first half but page failed to address it. In the second half when they went 3-2 up he made changes which completely negated our approach for an equaliser and allowed them to see out the game relatively comfortably. I think it's the complete lack of tactical awareness that alarms me the most.

It's clearly not working with Rico and Revell playing together though, and we don't have any other options up top. For me it's the lesser of two evils playing one up top but unfortunatly we don't have the creativity to support him.

Smith back in goal Saturday then?

Why? Cornell has stopped this being a cricket score.

Anybody havea working link? The two provided earlier are yielding no results.

Watching Brackley v Gills on TV. How on earth did we lose to that lot?

Is that Steve Diggin playing for Brackley? He used to dIck on us at Moulton Magpies when he played form Gregory Celtic.

Maybe a run out for the third kit as Stourbridge play in red and white stripes like Sheffield United.

What's the third kit?

http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/teams/northampton-town/10655108/gillingham-2-1-northampton#ooid=lmNXFqNzE66uN5ga2Urv7M9dzoCa6oj3

Anderson's p!ss poor clearance resulted in their second. It also looks like if he hadn't turned his back when the shot is made he could have blocked it! Shame as I thought he had a decent game.

Buchanan. Thought he handled JET very well today.

The only club in the last 15 years to win their respective league title and not have a league game shown live on sky tv is...

KT OUT

Their goal to game ratio (both for and against) over recent years is always high, probably something to do with it. I remember them beating Bristol rovers 5-4 some years ago on sky.

Poxford were on the tele last time, hardly fair !

Think it's because Macclesfield caused the "upset of R1" with their win over L1 Walsall. The prospect of them claiming another L1 scalp was too good to pass up on it seems.

Lincoln v Oldham? Really?

Whitehawk or Stourbridge away. Surely a contender for the TV?