Walsall boss Matt Taylor insists his side are not in a relegation scrap, despite slipping to 21st place in League Two after a 1-0 defeat by Northampton sent them spinning to a sixth successive defeat.

The hosts failed to recover from Northampton’s 10th-minute opener, new Cobblers striker Louis Appere claiming he got the final touch to divert home Mitch Pinnock’s free-kick.

Walsall had chances to level but their former goalkeeper Liam Roberts was in inspired form in the Town goal, denying George Miller, Jack Earing and Conor Wilkinson to help Northampton climb to fourth.

Taylor’s Saddlers, in contrast, are just seven points above the bottom two and visit basement side Scunthorpe on Tuesday night.

“I don’t think we’re in a relegation battle, we’re in a really bad vein of form,” said Taylor.

“We are not in a position I believe the players deserve to be in based on their ability, but we are in that position because we haven’t performed consistently enough.

“We can’t be mentally weak. It’s not my job to shield the players – it’s my job to protect the players, yes, but there also has to be an element of truth.

“The performance was better today, but we’ve still not got a result, so it’s got to be better again on Tuesday and we’ve got to get a result.

“We are not making teams work anywhere near hard enough for goals and that’s what is really disappointing. I thought we were the better team today, I really did.

“We’ve got to stop making stupid errors. We are not getting cut open by teams, we are giving teams goals. If we stop doing that, we will start winning football matches.”

Cobblers boss Jon Brady was delighted by the impact of debutant Scottish striker Appere, a deadline-day capture from Dundee United.

“It was good instinct from him. He nearly had a second one. It was a good start for him today. A positive,” said Brady.

“It is a big three points in the overall context of things. To come out of the week overall, Salford, Barrow and Walsall with six points out of nine, that is a positive. We will take that.

“We didn’t give a true reflection of ourselves on Tuesday (against Barrow) and let our fans down and today we wanted to make sure we gave our travelling support every bit of that commitment and we did.

“The way we stood up to them today in really difficult conditions with swirling wind, we put bodies on the line and came out with the three points so I’m extremely proud of the players.

“We have to be careful with the players and we picked up a couple of injuries today so we will need everyone we’ve got.”