LEAM Richardson felt his side were punished for ‘a crazy five minutes’ as he slipped to his first defeat as Accrington Stanley boss on Saturday.

The Reds conceded three goals in quick succession to squander a 2-1 lead and lose 4-2 at home to Northampton, which saw them drop three places to 16th in League Two.

“It’s very difficult to take,” Richardson said.

“I couldn’t pick a bad performance out, yet we’ve lost 4-2. We’ve conceded four goals, which in itself is not good enough.

“We had a bit of a crazy five minutes. We were dictating the game in the second half and we found ourselves in front and comfortable, but then we were behind.

“I think if we’d got a third ourselves we could have got a few more.

“We played some great stuff and I’m still trying to get my head round how we’re sitting with a loss.

“But they’re young lads and they will learn. We’ll always stick together.”

Richardson felt his team showed improvement on Tuesday’s 0-0 draw at Morecambe, when they needed a late penalty save from goalkeeper Ian Dunbavin to preserve a home point.

“I actually feel better about how we played and conducted ourselves than I did getting a result at Morecambe,” he said.

“That bugged me all week because we didn’t really get going at Morecambe.

“This time I thought we did very well.

“Sometimes it just doesn’t roll and you find yourselves with a defeat.”