KEEPING IT TIGHT IS KEY, INSISTS RYAN
RYAN Manning says clean sheets are the bedrock of Swansea City’s progress this season. Swansea secured another shutout against Peterborough United on Saturday, their eighth of their campaign in the Championship.
Russell Martin’s side may like to be seen as a passing side, but utility man Manning knows the dirty side of the game also has to be done.
“Clean sheets are the foundation of winning games. If you keep the ball out of your net and you score once, you’ll be flying,” he said.
“The clean sheets matter now more than ever. The more we can keep, the further up the table we’ll go and continue to build.
“It’s probably been the ideal Saturday for us, but we’ve got a tough week coming up now so we need to make sure we build on this.
“Hopefully, going into the international break, we’ll have a good week of three games.
“It’s tough playing a game every two days but it’s all about building for Tuesday night.
“Our home form has been really good. That allows us to create a foundation that we can build on away from home.
“Last week, tiredness probably killed us a little bit at the end of the game at Birmingham, there were sloppy goals which cost us.
“We’ve put that to bed now this week with a good performance here.
“If we can play like that again on Tuesday, we’ll definitely be in good contention for an away win.”
Peterborough boss Darren Ferguson felt his side paid the price for a slow start. “It was a horrendous start and at that point you are just trying to stay in the game,” he said.
“There were lapses in concentration and if you give the ball away in a terrible area teams will punish us.
“As we’ve seen this season, teams don’t need many opportunities to punish you in this league with the quality they’ve got.
“If you press too much at times, they’ll pop around you.
“If you sit off them you are letting them have the ball.”
Peterborough chairman Darragh Macanthony praised Swansea’s display, calling them “absolutely terrific”, while lamenting his own side’s poor showing.
Taking to Instagram, he said: “Comments on yesterday’s game. I’m gutted for all the fans that went there. Because that would be like going to the dentist without any numbing. That’s how bad it was.
“Unlike our boys to be that bad. I’d like to think they were all nightclubbing the night before, but I’m not sure they were!
“Anyway, that’s the Championship.
You come up against some good teams. Swansea were absolutely terrific.
“Well done to Russell and his team. Amazing performance by them. I don’t think we laid a scratch on them all game.
“My advice, go to the training pitch, dig a hole, get the match ball, put it in there and leave it there and forget about it.”