Dean Smith

We've just gone through a period where we've played Manchester City and Liverpool at home, and we were competitive in both games.

It's a tough league.

You only have to look at the table now, and I think from fifth down, there's only Burnley that have won five games.

Everybody else has won fours and threes, and it's so tight from five down.

So what you've got to be able to do is put little runs of results together.

It'd be tough to beat, and probably the most pleasing thing about tonight was the clean sheet as well, because we haven't had too many of them this season, and they're the ones that will get you the results.

No, I mean, our form since I came in at Villa Park has been very good.

We knew it was going to be hard away from home.

We've had a good win at Norwich and we've been very unfortunate.

Arsenal away is one that still knocks me.

We should have gone on and won that game.

But we've been competitive in all of them.

We've made a few mistakes, a little bit of naivety, but we made a lot of changes in the summer, 12 new players, and it takes time to gel in in terms of what we want defensively in the structure from them.

But we're getting better and better, and I feel that we can go into each game and be competitive better.

For me, football's all about winning, and you've got to try and win each game you play.

I know going to Manchester City and Liverpool are very difficult, but you've still got to go and try and win, but with a good defensive structure behind it.

Where are you next week, then?

No, that's what I wanted from him.

I pulled him aside and explained to him why I left him out against Manchester City and Liverpool.

I wanted more of a defensive structure.