Source: Northern_Echo
Team spirit is key, says Miller
Darlington'S new-found defensive resilience owes much to their recently formed team spirit says captain Ian Miller.[LNB] Speaking after Saturday's scoreless draw at Kettering, Miller revealed how manager Mark Cooper has helped form a bond between players that extends on to the pitch, which has assisted in the team's good start.[LNB] Last weekend, Darlington stood firm in the face of mounting pressure to beat Newport 1-0, and in midweek fought back from 2-0 down to gain a point at Altrincham.[LNB] Both matches demonstrated Quakers' spirit, and Miller said: There are no bad apples like we had last year.[LNB] We are a team now. The Lakes trip helped in pre-season, morale is obviously up but when you put in a shift out there like that today and you come off knowing that you've got a point and everyone has grafted hard, it makes you feel together.[LNB] Nobody is picking on each other, whatever happened on the pitch stays on the pitch, and we're together when we come off the pitch.[LNB] Fair play to the gaffer and the coach. We're a new squad, there's only three or four of us from last year, a lot of new faces have come in and Aaron Brown has come in today and did not look out of place.[LNB] Darlington have kept two clean sheets so far, which is in stark contrast to last season's dismal campaign when it took them until their 16th match to complete a game without conceding.[LNB] Miller added: We've worked on shape in training more than I have done with any other manager.[LNB] It's proving to be working.[LNB] Defensively, we obviously needed it. We've worked on different obstacles that we might come across, different formations, and how we might combat teams and it's paying off.[LNB] It's a team effort, we kept a good shape and I think we'll be hard to break down this season.[LNB] If you look at the Newport game last week, we would've buckled under the pressure in that game last season. It's a vast improvement this season compared with last.[LNB] Since the first game in pre-season we have looked defensively tight and today it was the same, but going forward we lacked a lot of quality.[LNB] After last season I don't really have any targets for clean sheets, I just want to keep as many as possible. But if we can keep putting a shift in like today's in our away games and win our home games then we should be there or thereabouts at the end of the season.[LNB]
