Saturday afternoon’s shut-out was clean sheet number seven in all competitions for the Blues, and the way in which it was achieved as a team was a real positive to take from a game that saw the defensive wall stand strong.
“I thought we looked solid,” manager Paul Simpson said. “I can’t think of many saves Tomas had to make.
“He had to get to a couple, but it was more his start position and being in a good area to deal with things that meant he nipped things in the bud, which was really positive from him.
“Defensively as a full team we stuck to our job really well and that’s what secured a zero in our against column.
“The fact that the only save was the one he tipped over the bar means credit for that needs to go to the way all of the players defended for us.
“Walsall are very good at set plays but we haven’t allowed them to use that against us. Clean sheets are always massive, I’m chuffed with that because overall it gives us something else to build on.”
“They’re in a good run of form at the moment but we’ve denied them any goals and we’ve denied them of any real clear chances,” he continued. “Again, that’s down to the way we’ve defended. We looked strong as a team in that regard.
“We knew that they’d get it forward to Johnson, who’s a real handful, and Knowles was a threat. Both wing backs get forward well, so they’ll always make it tough.
“I totally accept people turning up will have wanted all three points, we set up to get all three, it just didn’t happen for us. As we keep saying, if we’re not going to win it, make sure we don’t lose.
“There are occasions in our recent past where we’d have lost a game like that. We got a point out of it because we stuck to our task, defended really well, and that’s got to be a positive. If we can carry on and keep moving forward it might turn out to be a really important point.”