Paul Carden admitted it was frustrating to suffer another goalless home draw at the hands of a dogged and determined Altrincham side on Tuesday evening.

With Martin Ling laid low by a virus and missing his second game through illness, the United player-assistant manager spoke to the media afterwards and commented, "It was frustrating. We didn't work them as hard as we should have.

"We had opportunities to put the ball in the box and we turned them down; we had opportunities to pass it earlier and maybe took an extra touch, and in the second half, once they had something to hang on to, they were very good at doing that.

"They hang on to a clean sheet well with their two big lads dominant in the air, and maybe we played a bit too much on their heads at times," said Carden, in his usual frank post-match assessment.

"We were trying to get in behind them down the sides where we were hurting them, but when they bank up and leave one man up front and put the other ten behind the ball it is difficult to pass it through them. So sometimes maybe you have to go a bit straighter and more direct earlier, and unfortunately we didn't get behind them as many times as we could have."

But he was keen to take the positives out of the match, which extended United's unbeaten run to five games and was the fourth clean sheet in five matches.

"I know people will say we should keep a clean sheet at home against Altrincham but they've had some good results away from home, the back four is looking very solid, and on another day we could have scored a couple.

"We've had a couple of goals disallowed, a couple of iffy offside decisions, but you'll get that at this level. We expect it and we don't use it as an excuse, and it's a continuation of the run we've been on and we can take that into a tough game on Saturday."

Coming after Saturday's 7-0 goal fest against struggling Forest Green, Paul felt there was a danger of high expectations going into this game, and he added, "It wasn't a bad performance and we can't be overly critical, but I think we're so low after a 0-0 draw at home because of the result on Saturday.

"As I said before the game, people might get a bit carried away with that result but Altrincham came here and they've done a job on us again, and we've got to make sure that when Saturday comes we take the positives out of this little run we're on.

"We've had chances to score tonight. Hats has had a goal disallowed and I didn't see what for, but Parky looked onside from where I was and he's very good at those runs, Crowy had a chance in the first half when it just got caught under his feet and it's gone over the bar.

"So we're creating chances and we'll take the clean sheet and we'll go into Saturday feeling confident," he concluded.

Next Up

Tickets for the match at AFC Wimbledon on Saturday (3pm) will be on general sale from 10am Wednesday morning [details]. Tickets for our match at home to Luton on Saturday 26th September, which has been made all-ticket, go on sale at the same time [details].

[Match report] [Fixture list] [League table]

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