Cobblers defender Newey not giving up on the play-off dream

The left-back has played the past two games due to a groin injury to Evan Horwood, the most recent of which was Saturday’s 2-1 loss at Bury.

The nature of the defeat, in which the Shakers scored the winning goal in the 90th minute, has cast fresh doubt on the team’s ability to finish in the top seven, but Newey remains in bullish mood.

“There are still games to play and points to be had, so we have to keep going,” he said. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t be, really.

“We need to look at ourselves and see why we didn’t keep the ball well enough because we should have killed the game off at Bury after the sending-off.

“It was a hard one to take, especially because we lost it right at the death as well.”

The Cobblers find themselves five points off the play-offs and in a poor run of form which has yielded just one win in four.

To stand any chance of a top-seven finish they would need to replicate their red-hot start to 2015, in which points were being collected at an average of more than two per game.

“We know what we’re capable of - we went to Shrewsbury who haven’t lost all season at home and beat them,” he said.

“The lads have proved since the turn of the year that we are a team that is capable of winning games and we’ve got ourselves in a good position.

“We haven’t been able to maintain it in the past two games but there are still points to play for.”