Defender Richard Dunne has called on Aston Villa to keep more clean sheets

Dec 8 2009 by Mathew Kendrick, Birmingham Mail

“It was nice to get one. We’ve obviously got a lot of bad games coming up in December so the more clean sheets we can keep, the better.

“We know we can score goals.

“Before Saturday our last clean sheet was in September. We have kept conceding. It’s nice to get back to conceding zero again.”

Villa also have to go back to September for their last league away victory when they won the Second City derby at Blues.

But Dunne hopes Martin O’Neill’s men will be boosted by beating Portsmouth on opposition territory in last week’s Carling Cup quarter-final.

Although the Republic of Ireland international concedes that it will be a much tougher task getting a result at Old Trafford than at Fratton Park.

Asked if the win at Pompey will kickstart their away form, Dunne replied: “Hopefully.

“It is different opposition going to Old Trafford but the confidence has always been there. It is just the results haven’t come off for us.

“We’ve not lost the confidence when we’ve gone away. For whatever reason, we just haven’t got the results. Hopefully last Tuesday will kickstart the results.

“The results haven’t been great, the performances haven’t been bad. We’ve conceded late goals in games when we should have wrapped them up.

“We’re doing well and we’ve got the opportunity to challenge the top four so we can look forward to the league games and worry about the Carling Cup when it comes around.’’