Harrogate Town were 'a bit unlucky' not to take all three points off Northampton Town, says Luke Armstrong

The struggling Sulphurites recovered within 60 seconds of falling behind early in the second half to draw level through their leading marksman’s 11th goal of the season and then went on to create the better goal-scoring opportunities.

And having also gone closest to breaking the deadlock before the interval while restricting their visitors to a limited number of chances of their own, Armstrong believes that he and his team-mates probably did just about did enough to justify winning what was a close contest.

"Maybe we were lacking a bit of a clinical edge, but I definitely think that we were a bit unlucky not to get a second goal,” he told the Harrogate Advertiser.

"There was one that ran all the way through, a really good ball in from Danny Grant. I couldn’t get a touch and there was someone behind me who was just off it

"Falky [Josh Falkingham] also played a really good ball in and I think their defender did really well to block it because I thought that I had got a good contact on it, so we definitely had the better chances and Danny had the best chance of the first half as well.

"And there didn’t really look to be too much threat of us conceding at the other end. When you’re down at the bottom of the league you do tend to get that bad luck where they have a deflected shot that goes in.

"So, we can maybe find ourselves unlucky not to be coming away with the three points, but the main thing was that we didn’t get beat – and we didn’t.”

Town fell behind three minutes into the second half when Northampton struck with their first effort on target, Mitch Pinnock letting fly from 25 yards and seeing a deflection off Anthony O’Connor help the ball beyond the despairing dive of Mark Oxley.

But Harrogate drew level almost immediately after Jack Muldoon found some space down the left and pulled a cross back towards Armstrong at the near post.

He then found Falkingham, who was crowded out, but the ball broke for Armstrong on the edge of the area and he slid a composed finish across Tom King for 1-1.

"To be honest, my touch wasn’t the best. I was going to let it run across my body but it went a bit too far and then Falky was there and I thought ‘I don’t want him shooting’,” the 26-year-old joked.

"I was in there and the ball broke for me, I was kind of on the turn and I saw the keeper take a step one way so I thought that I would reverse it back across him.

"It happened how I wanted it to and thankfully the ball went in.

"It was great that it happened instantly, that’s what you want. We knew that we would get chances and, as they say, the opposition are often most vulnerable when they have just scored and that proved to be the case.”

Tuesday's result, combined with second-from-bottom Crawley’s defeat to Tranmere Rovers, moves Harrogate five points clear of the relegation places.