Wilder hails classy Northampton

Northampton boss Chris Wilder praised the attacking instinct of his players after they came from behind to thump Hartlepool 5-1.

Charlie Wyke rocked Cobblers with his third goal of the campaign but Wilder's side had turned it around by half time with a Marc Richards penalt and a brace from Kaid Mohamed. Second half goals from Lawson D'Ath and the impressive Richards, with his seventh goal of the season, rounded it off for Cobblers, much to Wilder's delight. He said: "It was a great reaction from Saturday's performance at Newport, which was very disappointing. But you tend to have one of those sort of games each season and hopefully that was ours. "We had an attacking side out there and we moved the ball around very well. We had plenty of movement, the front two worked very well for us, and it was a joy to watch my team play. "We were piling forward early on and we got caught on the counter attack a couple of times. But we wanted to be on the front foot from the start and take the game to them, we didn't do that on Saturday. "We always want to get at teams at Sixfields, to pass the ball and create chances. That leaves us open at the back at times but I wanted us to be positive from the start tonight. "It's very important for us to have solid form at home if we're going to challenge this season. We want to be looking at the top end of the table and not the bottom end, like last season." Hartlepool manager Colin Cooper had asked his players to be more creative ahead of the game, having kept clean sheets in their previous two home games. Wyke obliged but that was as good as it got for Hartlepool as the goals flooded in at the other end, leaving Cooper far from happy after the game. Cooper said: "I spent a long time in the dressing room after the game because it was a time for open and honest conversations. "There are things you have to do in football that we haven't done in this game and we really weren't good enough. We didn't stop crosses, we let them get into our box too often and there aren't many positives to come out of this game for us tonight. "Sometimes things go wrong and we accept that and sometimes people have bad games, we accept that too. "But we have a list of criteria that we expect from the players in every game and we didn't get that in this one. Clean sheets and good performances don't come from just turning up on the pitch, they come from hard work."