Aston Villa centre-back Richard Dunne believes manager Martin O'Neill has signed the right combination of defenders to make the side more resolute in the future.
Dunne, James Collins and Stephen Warnock were all brought in late in the transfer window and all made their debuts in Sunday's 1-0 victory over against Birmingham alongside Carlos Cuellar, whom O'Neill signed from Rangers last summer.
The group had little time to get to know each other but performed well to keep a clean sheet and Dunne believes they can only get better.
"James is a very good player and Stephen Warnock is as well so it helps," he told AVTV. "Throughout the game myself, Carlos and James seemed to get a lot of headers in our box and every second ball the midfield won.
"We just had to try and fit in. Having three new players actually helped.We had no set routine but it went just fine.
"It's the first game but it seems to have worked reasonably well. The more we can get training on it, the more the partnerships will build up."
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Spot on Stuart! I was surprised and pleased at the lack of misunderstandings in this new outfit's first game together. I have criticised Richard Dunne in the past for being gaffe prone, but perhaps that was because at City his defensive partners were not always defence-minded. Now with a back line where they all understand defending is their priority, Dunne may be able to cut out the errors caused by trying to do 2 players jobs. Bogey team astern! We will see on Saturday.
I was critical of MON's lack of defensive signings like most fans, however it was pretty apparent by the end of the window he could only buy once the selling club had got replacements in.
We could well have got some value for money with these defenders and dare i say it MON has made the overall squad stronger than last year despite the significant loss of Barry, especially with Downing, Davies, Bouma and L. Young to return. Greater competition for a starting XI shirt as we get further into the season.
Collins is a vast improvement on Knight, Dunne probably the closest we could get to Laursen (within budget) and Warnock showed what we have missed on the left hand side since Bouma got injured.
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