Stuart Gray is pleased that the Cobblers met some of his targets for the 2007/2008 season, but now he wants more.

"When we set out this season our aim was to better what we did last season and in terms of our league position, goals scored and points tally we've done that," he said.

"We had an outside chance of making the play-offs at one point and Colin Calderwood will probably look back at the game here where the referee gave them a penalty and they went on to get three points that night.

"We didn't play well that night, we performed better against Carlisle but that weekend was probably a bit of a defining moment for us because we had an opportunity to get into the top six.

"We have thrown points away this season but if you'd have told me last August we would finish 9th with 66 points I'd probably have snapped your hand off.

"Looking back I've been a bit disappointed with our performances against the top six away from home, we were two minutes away from getting a win at Forest but in the games at Swansea, Doncaster and Leeds we didn't really turn up.

"We put in a decent performance at Southend but on the whole when we've gone away to the top six we maybe haven't been quite able to cope with the pressure and go up to that next gear.

"The five games we went without picking up a point was obviously disappointing but every team has a blip at some point during the season.

"We didn't play particularly badly through that spell although I was disappointed with our performance against Bristol Rovers at home.

"We went into two home games after back-to-back wins but this game has got a great habit of kicking you in the teeth and the defining moment in the Southend game was Andy Kirk's missed penalty.

"In those sort of games you need to really score the first goal and if we'd have done that who knows. Yeovil also scored late winners in both the games against us but every manager can look back at the season and think what if.

"People will probably look back at the decision to let Andy Kirk go but I just felt I needed to bring in an all-round team player.

"Bayo coming in gave us that extra option in terms of his ball retention and the bonus with Bayo was that he got his goals as well.

"The loan signings we made helped to raise the standard and overall I think we got a fairly consistent level of performance out of the players.

"When I first came to this football club I think we were playing some nice football but too much of it was in our own half and we weren't creating enough chances.

"I had to bring the average age of the team down and I think the players energy levels and fitness levels have gone up.

"We've shared the goals around the team this season and that has meant we haven't had to rely on one player for the goals.

"The players have got to buy in to what we want to achieve here and I think 99% of them have done that.

"All credit to the players their consistency levels have been pretty good this season but they do know if they don't pull their weight they will be out the team.

"The last thing I want is for any of them to feel comfortable and I believe that they need to train how they play and play how they train."