United battled hard and looked the more likely to take the spoils at Plough Lane on Saturday afternoon and, in the end, they came away with an excellent point from what was a strong team display.
“I think it’s a good performance and I think we certainly did enough to win the game in terms of the way we’ve gone about it,” manager Paul Simpson said. “It was another one again where it wouldn’t quite drop for us inside the six or 18-yard box, and they’ve defended for their lives.
“Callum Guy had a really good effort, but he hit it into the ground when it was probably better if he’d got a clean strike. If he had caught it cleanly the chances are that would have been a goal.
“And there was the one for Denno. I haven’t seen it back, so I don’t actually know what happened. I don’t know if it went behind him or he miscontrolled it, but I thought we played some good football to get into good areas.
“It was just the final bit, and on another day we might have scored a couple, but they might say that about their chance at the end. I came here for three points, I’m delighted with one, so it’s now onto the next one.”
Expanding more on the overall performance, he added: “There was a lot of good stuff and I’m really delighted with the way they responded after the disappointment of last weekend, and it’s a good point that we take with us into a week of home games.
“We knew it was a game we had to stay in and we didn’t want to give them a leg up, that was the biggest thing behind the team selection and how we set out to play.
“I felt that with two experienced strikers we’d be the ones who would get that leg up but, as I say, we just didn’t have that little bit of quality in the final third.
“We got into some brilliant areas, some good crossing positions, and some good finishing areas, and I just don’t think we worked their goal as much as we would have liked.
“Overall it’s a really strong performance on the back of a hell of a long journey, and it’s another point added to the total.”
The tactics employed, put into practice by the team, kept a good home team at arm’s length for much of the encounter.
“We didn’t want to take any chances early on, and the surface was quite bobbly and firm,” he explained. “We didn’t want to take risks in dangerous areas so it’s a case of just trying to get a little bit of composure and control to everything you do.
“I thought Callum Guy, Owen Moxon and Jordan Gibson got into good areas and we were finding ways to get them into little pockets to receive. We were just missing that finish, that bit of finesse that would have really troubled the opposition.”
And defensively it was another rock solid outing with a twelfth clean sheet of the campaign.
“It’s a really big clean sheet for us that,” he agreed. “Let’s not be mistaken, this is not an easy place to come, and these are a difficult side to play against.
“Even when they brought their subs on, the two wider players who added some real pace to it, we defended so well against them.
“I think we dealt with everything they threw at us and I thought we looked the team that was going to go on and score the goal. We did start to play a little bit more football towards the end, but we have to take the point, be happy with that, and move on to the next one.
“As far as chances against us go, we defended really well in front of Tomas and the things he had to deal with were straight at him. He was comfortable with all of that.
“We maybe got a little bit of luck with their chance for Davison right at the end, but I think we earned that.
“I’m delighted with the whole team performance in terms of our out of possession stuff but we’ve just got to be a bit better when we get into those good areas.
“We’ve got ourselves into a position where we’re the top goalscorers in the league and we have to get back to being effective in and around the box. We need to get back to finishing things off.”
Part of coming away with something from a game like that is a willingness to do the ugly stuff, and a determination to stand up to anything that comes your way.
“That’s what you have to do away from home,” he told us. “You have to roll your sleeves up and every single one of them did that. They all dug in, defended, headed, blocked, dealt with set plays and collectively we’ve done the job we wanted to do.
“It would have been nice if we could have got that goal just to round it all off nicely for us in front of those brilliant supporters. As it is we have a good point and we’ll take that.
“I wanted to see a reaction to the disappointment of what happened against Harrogate. It’s easy to sulk about it, and to get down about it, but the players have come here and put on a really good show and shown an incredible work ethic. It’s a point, it’s the next game done, and we now look at Tuesday’s game.”
Yet again it was hard to find the words for the huge away following that packed out the visiting stand.
“It’s absolutely incredible, brilliant,” he said. “To make this journey down like they have, and the ones who have travelled across from the south, it’s just superb.
“Credit to the players for putting on performances and getting results that makes them want to come, but massive credit to them for responding and coming in numbers. We just need to keep performing so they keep coming for as long as we can.
“When the lads see it, they respond. It encourages the players to try to get that winning goal. When you see that behind the goals it makes such a difference.
“The players really do appreciate it and it’s a big point in front of a tremendous support, so I’m really pleased that we’re sending them home happy.”