Jon Brady was left scratching his head after watching his Northampton team labour to a surprise 1-0 loss at home to struggling Barrow.

Buoyed by new signings and looking to build on Saturday’s win over Salford, the Cobblers produced one of their worst performances of the season to lose ground on the teams around them in the League Two promotion race.

They created barely anything in attack and conceded a cheap goal, with Aaron Amadi-Holloway’s second-half header proving the match-winner.

“It’s obviously very frustrating,” said Brady. “It’s an off night.

“They have come to spoil the game and put men behind the ball and try and break on us, which they did well.

“We weren’t sharp enough with our passing and it’s certainly something to learn from and learn quite quickly.

“I don’t want to go too heavy into it but I’m disappointed as anyone and so are the boys.

“We had a performance full of energy and power and pace on Saturday and then tonight it’s almost the polar opposite.

“You end up scratching your head and thinking ‘why are we like this?’ but we will look into it because we know we have to be better.

“But results elsewhere have been OK tonight and we are only a couple of points off third so we will regroup and come back better.”

The win ended Barrow’s three-game losing run and manager Mark Cooper revealed afterwards he purposely picked a team that would counteract Northampton’s energetic forward line.

“We were up against a form team and a really good team and we had to work hard for it,” said Cooper.

“No-one gives you anything for free in football and you have to work hard in every game and I thought we competed well and we defended fantastically.

“We always carried a threat and we put our bodies on the line – which should be a given – and I think with the team I picked that was the main ingredient.

“Northampton have been playing with two midfield players up front and no out-and-out striker so I wanted to play a really mobile back three to deal with their threat and their pace in behind.

“I picked players that have pace and mobility and would be quick on the turn and that was the reasoning behind it and I was really pleased with how it turned out.

“It’s an old adage but when you come to an away game, you want to silence the crowd and get them turning on their team and I think we managed to do that quite early on.

“We started really well and when you do that, you give yourself a chance to win.”