Allardyce Delighted With Clean Sheet Ahead Of Reading Game

Speaking after the victory at Peterborough, Doctor Evil said:

"A clean sheet, the first of my targeted eight, and you have to be pleased with that. We were disappointed with the two goals we shipped at Burnley so we have been working hard on the training pitch this week to put that right and we got our reward tonight."

"People may point to Peterborough hitting the bar in the tenth minute but that's why the bar is there. If you don't get the ball under it you don't score. The same with the clearance off the line. That's why you have defenders. The fact is, and you can't get away from this one, Peterborough didn't score."

"I was pleased with our first half performance, we kept it tight and restricted Peterborough to just a handful of chances and you have to be pleased with that. Second half we were even better. Green made one good save, but that's why you have a keeper, and apart from that Peterborough didn't have a sniff even though we lost Faye at half time. You have to be delighted with that, especially given we scored twice ourselves."

"And Peterborough are tough opponents and difficult to beat on their own ground. I think you'll find only seven other teams have won here this season so to be the eighth is very pleasing, very pleasing indeed. I think it proves our quality to be just one of only eight teams to leave here with three points. And of those teams, only three apart from ourselves, have kept clean sheets. So you have to be very pleased with that."

"Now it's on to the Reading game and the lads have the confidence of one clean sheet behind them. The priority is to stop Reading scoring at the weekend too, because if they don't score, they can't win, and if they don't win, they can't widen the gap between us. Then if we pinch a winner, we leapfrog over them. It's very straightforward really. And if the gap doesn't widen and they lose at Southampton and Birmingham and we keep clean sheets in our remaining six games, we will be there or there abouts at the end of the season. And you have to be pleased with that!"