United’s clean sheet on Saturday took that tally to 10 for the campaign, with the other impressive statistic in the defeat column, with just five reverses from 25 games so far.
But manager Paul Simpson insisted that there is still better to come, with lessons to be learned from some of the chances created by Newport late in the day.
“We were a little bit lucky at times, and one of the things I said to them after the game was that if we want to push on and be better, and be harder to play against, we have to maybe work that extra one or two yards and get closer to stop crosses and passes from wide coming at us,” he said.
“We had an opportunity to stop the cross that came from out on their right hand side, when the lad hit the post with the header, and we didn’t.
“Once it gets into the box things can happen either way, so we need to be better at not allowing that kind of thing to develop. That little bit of luck when it came off the post went our way because we were able to clear it.
“Against teams who really do cause problems off deliveries it’s so important to work as hard as you can to stop them. I know I’m being picky but we have to look at things we can do better. That’s how you improve.
“On another day it might not bounce to our player and it’s in the back of the net. That’s when you make life hard for yourselves when there’s no need, because if that had happened on Saturday we’d have suddenly had five or six minutes where they’re throwing everything at it.
“It can get to where you’re hanging on a bit, a proper tin hat job, when it doesn’t need to be that way. Thankfully we had those slices of luck and we got a really big result against a tough opposition, and it keeps us up in a good position.”
Keeping the back door closed through a slog of a first 45 minutes was a real plus to take from what was a solid display.
“I thought it was huge that we did that,” he agreed. “Also I thought the adaptability of the players showed up as well, because I don’t know the timing of it, but I decided to change it to go with a back four and push Mellish into midfield.
“I wanted to see if we could get a bit of a foothold. They surprised us a bit by going with a front three, possibly because they looked at what Doncaster did a couple of weeks ago.
“I thought players showed good versatility to be able to change and come through that spell, then you get the goal, and in the second half we had much more control because of the shape we had, and then we changed it back to a three when they went with two strikers.
“Being able to keep shifting the formation is important, so credit to the players for the way they react. It earned them their clean sheet on this occasion.”
“That’s ten, and I suppose both teams can look at chances missed,” he added. “They hit the post, so did Jordan Gibson, so we’re level on that one.
“The big things from them that we thought was going to cause us problems were the long throw and set plays, and the delivery they have particularly from Adam Lewis with his left foot.
“There was one free-kick that got whipped in to the far post which we got away with, the lad probably should have scored with a header. But we defended the throw-ins well, Tomas came and took crosses when he needed to.
“We defended for our lives as a team. What we have to do is try and marry up the work rate out of possession, and make sure we work harder in possession to make sure we keep the ball better.
“Overall it wasn’t a memorable performance but it was a good one. JK’s goal will probably get on the goal of the season reel, apart from that there wasn’t a hell of a lot else.
“But I don’t really care, I’m not bothered. Supporters want to come and see winning teams, and when you’re up at the top of the table you want to keep winning, and that’s what we’re doing.
“We’ve got another tough game next weekend but we just have to get ourselves ready to go again.”
