Another clean sheet for Keiren Westwood on Saturday helped United in to top spot, so we caught up with the United keeper to get his thoughts on the game.

He said: "It was a brilliant result for us. It was second versus third, so it was a big game and we've managed to get a cheeky 1-0 and go top of the League, which is great. The thing is though, it's still very early so we're not going to start spouting off saying we're going to do this or that. Whenever anyone asks me about that, and I've been the same through all of my years here, then I always say that we're just trying to get as many points as quickly as we can, and then we'll take it from there."

"In terms of the game itself," he added, "I suppose it went along the lines of the games we played against Swansea and Yeovil, and to be fair that's the way we play. In whatever game we play in we are trying to keep it nice and tight at the back, so it wasn't like that just because we were playing Southend. We go int o every game looking to do that, and especially away from home. At home obviously the impetus is with us to attack a lot more."

"We scored on about 60 minutes," he said, "so we knew they were going to try and come at us after that, and it was always going to be a case of trying to concentrate and defend well. In general we've always tried to do that, and you can't argue with our defensive record over the last few seasons, so that's something that we are used to. We defended really solidly as a team, and that gave us a good base to go on and win the game."

On 'that' save in the first half he added: "Well, it was fairly central for a free-kick, so I've decided to put five in the wall and position them just to the left. I got in to position on the right and obviously when he gets it over the wall you've just got to get over to it. You don't really work on that sort of thing in training to be honest. I don't really work on free-kicks or look at anything like that, because it's much more the sort of thing that you just have to react to on the day, and use your judgement given whatever the situation might be. Obviously people know their jobs in the wall and things like that, but we just try to get them lined up as quickly as possible and then take it from there."

"Clean sheets are always a massive boost for us," he told us, "but as long as we keep winning then we'll take it however it comes. It does make it a little bit nicer when you do it in the big games though, and when everyone does their jobs well when it matters ... even though Danny Graham missed from about three yards! Then again I suppose that didn't cost us in the end, so we can't be  too hard on him. I'm not going to give him any stick because these things can come back round and bite you, so I won't say too much about that. He's a good striker and he scores a lot of goals for us as well, so I suppose we can always let him away with one."