Kevin Nolan celebrates Northampton’s ‘deserved’ victory over in-form Bolton

Northampton boss Kevin Nolan declared himself very proud of his players after their “fabulous” performance in victory over Bolton.

Wanderers arrived at Sixfields having not lost in any competition since the opening day of the season, but they missed early chances and were punished by second-half goals from Cameron McGeehan and Sam Hoskins.

“I’m delighted and I thought we deserved it in the end,” said Nolan, whose side have now won four of their last five League One games, all with clean sheets.

“A lot of our play was very good today.

“There were some sloppy moments and we did gift them a couple of opportunities, but it was a fabulous performance and result for us and the response from last weekend’s defeat at Wycombe has been incredible.

“I was delighted with the win on Tuesday (against Chelsea Under-21s in the EFL Trophy) and then to follow it up with what we produced today, I’m very proud of the boys. It’s another clean sheet too.

“Bolton’s chances came from our mistakes and it was a bit heart-in-mouth at times but outside of those couple of moments, I thought we executed our game really well.

“I’m very happy with each and everyone of the lads because they stood up to a tough Bolton side and I’m delighted to get another win at Sixfields.

“They are another team who I expect to be up there that have come to us and found it really difficult to break us down and beat us, which is very pleasing for me.”

Wanderers missed a couple of early chances, with Marcus Forss denied before Mason Burstow missed the target altogether when he only had Ross Fitzsimons to beat.

And the game turned with two goals in the space of four minutes in the second half.

Dean Campbell’s fine cross was turned in by McGeehan with 20 minutes to go and then a foul on Michael Forbes allowed Hoskins to score from the rebound of his saved penalty.

Bolton were 11 unbeaten before stumbling at Sixfields.

Manager Steven Schumacher said: “We spoke last week about how clinical we’ve been but things change quickly in football. When your striker and top scorer goes through one-on-one with the goalkeeper, six yards out, you don’t expect him to miss the target.

“You can’t legislate for that and our other striker, who scored two last week, has a snapshot and their goalkeeper makes an unbelievable save and again, you can’t legislate for that.

“I’m not concerned because as long as we’re creating those chances, they will go in. You can’t say one week it’s all great and then the next week we have a problem.

“It’s just about winning and I feel we did enough to win today but we haven’t because they put a cross into the back stick and we don’t defend properly and that’s the first time we’ve conceded a goal like that this season.

“Northampton then got a penalty, which was a mistake from us, and we were punished for those two moments, but I don’t think there’s a lot wrong with how we’ve played so we just move on.”