Graham Turner's thoughts after the 0-0 draw with Brentford
By Matt Johnson
Graham Turner revealed his delight as his Town side picked up a first clean sheet in seven games in the 0-0 stalemate with high-flying Brentford at Greenhous Meadow.
The Bees were in imperious free-scoring form, winning their previous five with a combined total of 11 goals and Turner praised his rearguard for keeping the visitors at bay.
“You’ve got to be pleased with a back four that keeps a clean sheet,” said Turner.
“In the team talk before the game I said that it is about time we kept a clean sheet and we were going to have to work hard to make sure that happens, particularly when we’ve got to defend from crosses and corners. The lads have done well and kept a clean sheet for us.
“On the first half performance I thought we should’ve gone in the lead despite the fact that Brentford had a fair amount of the ball and we had a bit of pressure in the second half and some chances. We can do better, but I thought it was a decent performance against a good team.”
One defeat in eight makes pleasant reading for GT but, although pleased, he admits the focus is now firmly set on turning the flurry of draws into victories to reflect performances on league position.
“It’s one defeat in eight now but we’ve got to start winning games and climbing away from the bottom. After a quick glance at the results, it looks as though they’ve gone for us today. We don’t want to be having to look over our shoulder at teams beneath us, we’d like to claw our way away and be a little bit more comfortable, but its solid and a point at a time will help us get away from there.”
Goalless draws home and away can be viewed as an impressive return against a side riding high in League One and Turner is now looking forward to taking on another side in red hot form when Town travel to play Coventry on New Years Day.
“We’ve generally done better against the better teams. We were very unfortunate not to win the game down there [at Brentford], we were certainly the better team and after the performance today we’ve come out of the two games with a bit of credit.
“I think that Coventry have got some very good players but there is the challenge for us. It’s a big club, big ground, so we’ll go there and put up a show and hopefully get the right result.
“We’ve not be fazed going to any of the big sides we’ve played so far, Sheffield United was as good a performance as any, so we haven’t got to worry about things and we’ll get on with it”