Chris Hogg felt there was a significant shift in mindset from his players during Saturday’s 2-0 home win against Colchester, saying they ‘played to win’ instead of playing not to lose.

Continuing a recent theme, Cobblers were fast out of the traps at Sixfields and this time, unlike in midweek, they made it count thanks to Matty Warhurst, who converted Lee Evans’ superb cross inside 10 minutes.

The home side did have to survive a couple of scares before half-time as Colchester missed two good chances, but once Sam Hoskins poked in a second after the restart, they managed the game well and coasted to an important home win.

“I’m delighted and I’m absolutely over the moon for the players,” said Hogg. “Some of the recent performance levels have been closer to what we want, especially on Tuesday night even though we didn’t get the result.

“Belief and confidence are huge but we have to shift the mindset at this club. I say it every day to the players - we have to stop playing football games to lose, we have to play to win.

“I thought you saw a team today that played to win rather than one that played not to lose and that’s a big difference in mindset. All I want us to do is play to win and that’s playing forward and running forward.

“It wasn’t perfect but we were solid and hard to beat and if you look at the week, six points and two clean sheets, it’s a solid building block for us.

“It’s been a really positive week to build the belief, and it was great to see how much the fans got behind the team today. I have to apologise to them because I’m not really a fist bump type of manager but I will always show my appreciation for their support.”