Doncaster Rovers man's simple wish for Lincoln City trip as he recalls his international odyssey
It might be a well-worn footballing cliche, but Matty Pearson believes Doncaster Rovers need to get back to being hard to beat.
And that starts, at its basic level, with keeping the ball out of their net. Rovers are in the midst of a poor, winless run and defensively they are in need of improvement, too. Grant McCann's side have shipped 21 goals in 15 league games with just three clean sheets in that period.
Performances have been improving in recent weeks though and centre-half Pearson, 32, hopes that elusive win can come later today at Lincoln City. And he says rediscovering the art of a shut-out is key.
"It's on us defenders now to keep the ball out of our net," the former Huddersfield Town man said. "Even if it's a 1-0 win, we need to get back to clean sheets. And that's something we've mentioned as a group.
"Lincoln are a strong team so it's not a case of us just expecting to turn up and win. We have to be at it and make sure we're full throttle. "But the main thing for me, as I say, is a clean sheet. We keep one of those and we don't lose and then we can build on that and rely on our forwards and our set-plays to get the win."
This weekend's fixture at Sincil Bank comes during the international break with no Premier League or Championship sides in action, allowing Leagues One and Two to take centre stage. International football is not something you may normally associate with Pearson, but early on in his career he racked up a handful of caps for the England C side.
The England C men's side was formed in 1979 with the aim of allowing players in non-league the opportunity to play international football.
Pearson won nine caps in total, between 2013 and 2015 during his time at non-league FC Halifax.
"Yeah, it was a long time ago!" Pearson said with a beaming smile, when reminded of his international escapades by the Free Press. "It's basically the non-league England team so it was players from the National League and below. We had some good players in my group like Angus MacDonald and Andre Gray. We had loads of players who went on to play higher.
"The non-league players used it as a platform to get more eyes on you. I enjoyed when we went away to places like Slovenia. It was a good set-up against these countries' under-23 teams. It was a good experience going away to some nice places."