Boro boss wants to see sharper instincts in front of goal against Brentford

Graham Westley expects a tough encounter at Brentford tonight but says consecutive clean sheets in Boro’s last two games will give his side something to build on.

For each of the past two seasons Stevenage have had better defensive records than their rivals in the Conference and League 2, but this season, having made the step up to League 1, Westley’s men had kept just one clean sheet before the 1-0 win over Charlton 10 days ago.

Boro followed that up with another clean sheet last Saturday against Yeovil, and Westley says that now his side are keeping goals out at one end they must work hard at the other to put their chances away.

“[Brentford is] a local game for us,” Westley said. “It’s another interesting encounter.

“They’re a side we played last year and they knocked us out at our place in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy.

“They’ve got some very good players, a new manager, they’ve had a good start to the season so it won’t be an easy game.

“They’ve got a lot of league 1 experience, they know the level, are well grounded. They won’t be making some of the errors we’ve made, forwards perhaps rushing chances and not showing the composure because they probably don’t realise the time they’ve got at the moment, we’ve got that our in our camp.

“We’ll knock those things out of us, we’ll grow and develop and improve as the season goes on.

“It’s good to have those two clean sheets under our belt. We hadn’t had a clean sheet since the opening day. When you’re building a game at a new level sometimes you’ve got to take things one step at a time, we’ve managed to seal it up at one end and we need to keep bedding that in and making sure we defend how we can.

“We’ve had the best defensive record in the Conference, we had the best defensive record in League 2 [but] we’ve been more open than we’d like this season.

“We’re working hard to get it right at one end but when you do that sometimes your focus takes you away from being too dynamic at the other.”