Earlier in the season I bemoaned the fact that Saints could not seem to keep a clean sheet, especially on the road, with four wins and two draws in our last six games our form is back to where it should be and guess what there have been five clean sheets.

All season I have banged on about the benefits of keeping a clean sheet in games, what cost us dear in the latter months of 2011 was that we couldnt seem to do that, although we defended strongly for most of the minutes of any single game, we just couldnt seem to go a agme without conceding, a look at the three months of November, December and January reveals that we played 14 league games, yet we only managed to keep a clean sheet in 3 of them resulting in only 21 points, 9 of them in the first 3 games of the run, if I started the figures after the 3-0 win against Brighton it would reveal 11 games played and only 12 points won with 2 clean sheets.

These figures show just how important it is to keep it tight at the back, there were at least four games in there were the goals came from defensive errors, which even at a very conservative estimate saw 7 points slip through our hands, a look at the league table now and what those dropped points could have done for us hammers home the need to keep it tight.

Our last six games have yielded 14 points, yet they could so easily have been much less if we hadnt been so tight at the back, at times the individual errors have been there, of that there is no doubt, but we have got away with them and come back stronger for it and having rode our luck we have more of a confidence about us now.

What we need to do now though is keep it up, three shut outs in our next three games will do wonders for us, it should mean nine points, it would also mean our goal difference would be almost insurmountable, we have always known we can outscore teams, but it makes it a lot easier to do so when we dont concede.

Photo: Action Images

bstokesaint added 12:20 - Mar 6 Really liking the Jos-Fonte partnership. I think that is the key to the tightening at the back more than anything else. Martin is also improving is encouraging.
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