Ollie Westbury and Jonny Drury bring you their take on Salop's narrow 1-0 defeat to Huddersfield.Salop more than matched their opponents for large parts of the game and had their best chacne when George Lloyd hit the bar in the second period.
But with one of their first real chances of the game, Huddersfield found a moment of quality and it was enough to take the points.
But with one of their first real chances of the game, Huddersfield found a moment of quality and it was enough to take the points.
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00:00Salop fans, welcome to ShropshireStark.com, my name is Jonny Drew, sorry if you can't hear me, I've got my 19 layers on, it's absolutely freezing here at the Crowd Meadow, alongside Shrewsbury correspondent Oli Westbrook after Salop have probably harshly been beaten 1-0 by Huddersfield who have tackled on high pressure, Shrewsbury well in the game and then conceded in the final 10 minutes.
00:29I mean it's Oli, Gareth Amesworth has just said what I've kind of written in a piece there, probably the biggest compliment you can pay Shrewsbury is you probably wouldn't be able to tell who was chasing a play off and it was fine relegation tonight, it was a top performance from Shrewsbury that lacked one final little piece of the jigsaw.
00:47He said that if you came down from Mars you wouldn't know who was the top side and who was the side trying to survive relegation and I think that's a pretty fair representation, I think that Huddersfield had that bit of real pace on the counter attack and you could tell that they've got some really good players in their side but I mean fair play to Shrewsbury, it was a tough second half against Bolton on Saturday, don't get me wrong they were really good in the first half but the second half was tough and they were just overpowered and probably outclassed by Bolton.
01:17But they responded so well to that kind of setback and that disappointing defeat here just a few days ago against another good side, it must be hard to keep dusting yourself down and to keep just going again.
01:30It's been a pretty relentless run of games and really the fixture, because obviously this is a replayed fixture, a game that was meant to be played at the start of January, it's not really helped Shrewsbury I think but anyway they did really well, I thought they performed excellently.
01:47Where they kind of let it slip on Saturday was where they kind of went to sleep a little bit, not to sleep but they just ran out of steam after half-time, they didn't do that tonight, if anything they looked more like scoring.
01:59They had that procession of set-pieces in the second half where it's just kind of waiting for somebody to knock it into the net, they hit the bar, there were other opportunities that they had where the goalkeeper saved it and it probably didn't really look like scoring once they fell behind, I think that really knocked the stuffing out of them.
02:17But Town were good value for a bare minimum of points and it feels very deflating, you feel very sorry for the players that are involved and the staff and the supporters that have all been here watching tonight, they were good value for something from this game and it further depths their survival hopes because it's back-to-back losses, two consecutive losses, it's not helpful, they were on a good run, they'd taken seven points from the last nine available.
02:45And it's just kind of, yeah, it's just dented them just a little bit tonight so it's disappointing for everybody involved.
02:52They got the ammunition like we saw, to put the ball in the box and set-pieces from crosses, certainly from the left, Mal Bennett's deliveries were very good and George Lloyd and John Marquess I thought battled so well, George Lloyd's obviously had one off the bar but you put a striker in that team that can get you 15, 16 goals, the ones where they're going off your backside, you're in the right place at the right time, they are creating chances of getting it in those areas.
03:18If they do go down, that could well be the difference because defensively, on displays like that, maybe it wasn't the same on Saturday, obviously they conceded three but defensively they've got things kind of sewn up, but it's just that final lacking little bit of quality and nous in front of goal because how many times have the ball bounced around that six-yard box behind us tonight and another day they could have been turned in?
03:40Yeah, yeah, to be fair they have kind of scored goals on occasion, there's not been too many games under Ainsworth where they have failed to score but no, I see they needed a poacher in there tonight didn't they, somebody that's like a fox in the box sniffing around inside the six-yard box to turn the ball home and yeah, perhaps you could probably put the ball in for the goal, I think that would be disappointing and something they'll look back on at the end.
04:10It was a very avoidable goal that they perhaps conceded but those moments are going to happen, aren't they? There was definitely a goal in that game, should we have done enough to at least score once and on this occasion they didn't take the chances and that's the position that they find themselves in.
04:30They've improved immeasurably over this boss Gareth Ainsworth, they've been excellent of late, they've been pretty good ever since the kind of loss against Wickham, they've been pretty good and sometimes they've been good and they've still managed to lose, you just hope that they can gather the resilience and the strength of character to come again.
04:51Obviously Gareth Ainsworth has just said to me there that he will not be a damp squib on Saturday, he will be able to get them back up for it and get them going again but you just hope for Shrewsbury's sake that he doesn't kind of take the oomph out of them almost because of it being a disappointing result so fingers crossed they can get back to winning ways or pick up some points against Stevens at the weekend.
05:16That's the key point isn't it, it's all well and good if Gareth Ainsworth said we perform like that, we'll be fine, we'll be above that line but if you probably look back over his performances, they've got the results where they weren't expected to get results and they've kind of not got results where they really would have wanted to.
05:32I'm not saying on Saturday it's teams around them but teams lower down in the table, that's what they've got to try and do, not have a hangover from these games against the big sides and turn these performances because like he said, if they perform like that on Saturday they probably will get three points but it's easy said than done.
05:49That was one of the questions I asked him, I asked him about whether there will be any anxiety that because they performed reasonably well, probably better tonight than they did on Saturday that second half but because they performed reasonably well is there any anxiety that there will be a bit of a hangover going into that game because you're not just going to turn up and some days you have off days and you don't play at your best and that is something that will probably be in the back of my mind, can they do it again, can they go out there and perform pretty well again?
06:16They seem to have kind of got the tactical aspects of it and I think there was a really nice line in Gareth Haynes' post-match press conference there when he said first it was fundamentals, now it's details and I think that's pretty right.
06:30You think there's a system, there's an identity, there's a way of playing and let's just hope that they can bring that same intensity that they had today, the first half on Saturday to the game against Stavridge this weekend.
06:43I'm sure the fans will want to see that, a lot to talk about from tonight's game, could do it all night but it's absolutely freezing and I want to go home but Shrewsview is back tomorrow, tune in.