Two clean sheets against last two difficult away games. No surprise that this coincides with a return to fitness and form to Agger and even Johnson and a tweak to formation that alleviates the pressure in the middle of the park. I've been critical of BR's tactics sometimes, especially when our defence looked hopelessly exposed and we lacked balance, but he's absolutely nailed the last two games
I don't want to be uber critical but I think it's more a case of us not making as many mistakes and the opposition not taking their chances - Soton and Utd had 1-2 clear chances but failed. I can't remember the stat but in the past 6-8 games, our opposition had scored from 80-90% of our mistakes. Also, Allen and Henderson are now providing more energy and protection in midfield.
I agree. I think Toure and our central Midfield was were most of the errors occured, along with iffy FB play.....Restricting both Southampton and Utd away to a couple of chances proves that. No mistakes = clean sheet. Settled (first choice?) defence and a solid central midfield = no mistakes
There were still moment yesterday, Agger seems to have a pathological fear or marking anyway, as he decided to run away from Van Perie in the box twice leaving him with acres of space, but then you expect to give the opposition 1 or 2 chances a game. At least now we are making the teams work for their chances rather than gifting to them. 2 Away clean sheets, 2 away 3-0 wins has to breed loads of confidence especially against Saints who have a good home record and United who, although **** this season, are still big rivals.
