Now I know people get annoyed about us not keeping a clean sheet and to do so guarantees at least a point and it’s a pleasure to see a capable defence at work, but as long as we score one more goal than the opposition, goals conceded are an irrelevance because it’s really all about the the three points….there are no points for a clean sheet… one point yes, but points in the plural, no.
I’m not for one second advocating we just concede goals with gay abandon, no way, we have to defend, but some people fretting over conceding a goal is neither here nor there.
I suppose what I’m saying is if we went through this entire season without keeping a clean sheet, but we’re up there with the other teams at the run in, it wouldn’t bother me a bit.

Wasn’t that Keenan’s philosophy at Newcastle, no matter how many the opposition score we will always score one more.

Shit…that didn’t work out well did it. Ah well, back to the drawing board….

How about we start the game believing we are 1 nil down and then put in 100% effort to equalize and then get a winner?

Result of game 2 nil win.

Clean sheets aren't the be all and end all but they do demonstrate that you are difficult to beat or even score against. That gives a team a huge advantage in that it doesn't take a lot of goals to amass three point wins.
This season, away from home, we have scored two in three of the games and three in the other one. The stark "form" of this suggests that in order to get three points on the road, we have to score three goals to get those three points. That is too big an ask.
When people talk about clean sheets or, in our case, the lack of them, they are highlighting concern about the actual number we do concede, thus making it more difficult to bring the points home.
It's really all about reducing the goals against column.
In our four away games so far we have scored nine goals which, by any standards, is not to be sniffed at but, in doing so, we have conceded thirteen.
It seems a crying shame to me that the good work up front is being watered down by the personnel manning the back door.
Winning by the odd goal will bring success, I fully agree. However saying it is easy but doing it is something else.
That's the best I can do, Snowy.

I would say the back door would be ok if Ferguson was moved to left back and we played a recognised centre back. It’s the middle door we have a problem with, we need a decent midfielder.

That would be a good start, Jamie. At the moment we have three recognised centre backs behind Fergie in the pecking order, which I find bizarre. Lacy, Burton and Pruti apparently aren't good enough to either play or get on the bench against Oxford City. We needed another centre back in there so why put Lacy on the bench if you're not going to use him. We all know Fergie's best position and it's not centre back.
In his pre match interview JA said apart from the two long term absentees we had a clean bill of health so it wasn't injuries. I like Askey but he is not infallible. He is appearing to be struggling with his defensive set up at the moment, especially at set pieces. In fact we have a set piece problem all round. We can't defend them and we don't score many from them. Maybe he needs to recruit a defensive coach to help him translate what he wants into reality.

would like to know what the situation is with pruti. plays one game gets dropped and not even on the bench. then he plays again and the same thing happens. ok he,s not the rock to build the defence around but surely good enough for the bench and filling in for the regular injuries. is he wanting away, does JA want him away or something else.

I agrre that he's not the best in the world but I'm sure that the team would be better with him at left CB and Ferguson in his normal left WB position.

exactly. as i have said by moving ferguson to a position he is not good at you lose two effective players from the start. a CB and a WB instead of just one.