Rowett bemoans poor start

Gary Rowett believes Burton's problems began before the game even started as they lost 1-0 at Northampton.

A solitary goal from John Marquis earned relegation-threatened Cobblers all three points, and meant Albion slipped six points adrift of the automatic promotion spots. Rowett felt that his players had not warmed up properly and was at a loss to explain their lack of creativity. "It was a very disappointing performance from us, we were poor in the warm-up and we took that into the game," said Rowett, "It was a sloppy start from us, we knew how Northampton were going to play it but they showed a bit more desire than we did. That was the disappointing thing for me, we never really got to grips with it in the first half. "Their goal came from an error, which summed up the game, it was very scrappy. Rob (Lainton) has been beaten by the ball swerving and it's caught him on the end of his finger, I think he's damaged some tendons and that's why he had to come off. "That was double blow, conceding the goal and losing Rob and it left us chasing the game in the second half . "We've ended up with almost a front four but I can't really remember us creating a decent chance. Our best opportunity came in the first half through Shane Cansdell-Sherriff, he maybe should have done better but it was a good save from (Matt) Duke. "We didn't play with enough tempo in the first half, Northampton showed they've got a lot of desire to stay in this division, but we didn't do enough with the squad we've got. "The pressure was on today, people might have seen it as fifth against second from bottom but in this division it's not as simple as that. It's all about which team has the more desire and Northampton had more desire than we did."