BARROW boss Pete Wild was quick to take the positives despite being held to a frustrating goalless draw by Sutton United.

The Bluebirds had the better chances to clinch all three points in difficult conditions at Holker Street.

But it’s a point in the right direction and five league games without defeat for the first time since they returned to the Football League.

Matt Gray’s U’s are a well-drilled outfit and are tough to beat and so it proved as the hosts huffed and puffed without reward.

Jake Young twice forced Sutton stopper Jack Rose into good saves in the first-half, but it’s nine without a loss and just one defeat in the last 14 for the London side.

“I think the phrase if you can’t win, don’t lose comes to mind,” admitted Wild, whose side have only conceded one goal — from the penalty spot — in their five game run without defeat.

“Sutton are the form team in the league. They haven’t had a shot on target and we’ve looked comfortable all afternoon.

“There are some real positives, that’s four our of five clean sheets.

“It’s a game where we’ve completely controlled the form team in the league.

“With the conditions and how the game panned out it was really difficult to get the ball down and play.

“It’s probably a game that six weeks ago we would have lost, we would have made a mistake and caved in.

“The progression of gaining a point, and I think it’s a point gained, and another clean sheet; there are a lot of positives to take from the game.

“Sutton are a tough and aggressive side and put a lot of pressure on you with getting the ball back in and we’ve defended that well.

“On another day, without the wind around, we might be able to get the ball down and play a bit more.

“It shows the character of the players. The big thing to say is the character the players have shown to really want to defend our own box has been incredible.

“When you look at us for set pieces for and set pieces against, we’re really beginning to dominate both boxes for the first time this season.”

On another day it would have been all three for the play-off chasing Bluebirds and that was the only source of frustration for Wild.

Twice he saw balls flash across the face of the six-yard box with no-one there to meet them in the second half.

And he added: “We’ve had some really good chances to win the game and unfortunately they’ve not gone in.

“We switched to more of a 3-4-3 because we wanted to stop them slinging it. We wanted to put pressure on them to stop them hitting the long ball.

“What comes with that is there’s not as many men in the box and we found that with the two second-half opportunities which was frustrating.

“Unfortunately we couldn’t get the ball over the line, but it wasn’t for the want of trying.”