Shout it loud and clear!

Ben Amos: seizing the power

Amos isn’t afraid to dish out an ear-bashing
YOU can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, as the old saying goes.

While Athletic's efforts in front of goal haven't been sharp enough to knock the top off a hard-boiled lately, the big positive has been just how stuck-in the defensive unit has been prepared to get.

With veteran Andy Todd adding his know-how alongside in-form centre-back partner Neal Trotman, grateful goalkeeper Ben Amos has been screened by an imposing, intimidating wall.

Statistically, things have been more or less hunky-dory defensively of late.

Athletic have conceded only three goals in six matches, picking up impressive clean sheets away at npower League One contenders Huddersfield and, on Tuesday night, MK Dons.

Despite the tender years of Manchester United prospect Amos — the Macclesfield-born stopper is only 20, with 16 professional appearances under his belt — he showed at Stadium:mk that he isn't afraid to get his point across, with force, to those men in front of him.

At one stage in the second half, defensive confusion which left a man unmarked at a free-kick resulted in Amos giving Cedric Evina a fierce ear-bashing.

It is a sign of the confidence of Athletic's younger players like Amos that they don't hold back on telling each other what has gone wrong.

And he reckons it can only be a good thing in terms of the team's development this season.

"When I first arrived, the players weren't comfortable with telling each other when they had done something wrong," said Amos, who picked up his third Chronicle Star Man nomination for a settling first-half performance on Tuesday night to shut out a rampant Dons side.

"We don't mean it personally, but we are trying to encourage each other and make each other better.

"If I do something wrong, like producing a bad kick or something, then the back four are on at me.

"It is because we have played some good games and have set the standards reasonably high.

"It is about making sure that we all keep to those levels.

"It is the only way you improve. And it is the same in training — things have become much more competitive, especially as there is much more competition for places in the team now."

Highly-rated Amos has already accumulated five blanks in the 'against' column in his time at Boundary Park and is growing in stature with every game.

The one thing that he and Athletic both desperately want now is for things to start going right at the other end of the pitch.

"People said when I first came here that it might take this many games to really get going as a goalkeeper, to get that experience which helps on decision-making and things like that," he added.

"Clean sheets are what me and the back four aim to get and I think we have done reasonably well, if you take the Southampton game out of the equation where things went wrong.

"We haven't conceded many goals at all, really, it is just that in the last four games we haven't scored a goal.

"But we are creating chances, so I think the goals will come eventually. It is not a big worry, really."