Ricketts pleased with Shrewsbury’s attacking threat in Southend victory

Posted Wednesday, September 18, 2019 by PA

Shrewsbury manager Sam Ricketts felt his side carried a threat throughout as they beat Southend 4-3 in a seven-goal thriller.

Shrewsbury were always in front as they inflicted a seventh defeat in eight League One matches this season on struggling Southend.

Omar Beckles, Jason Cummings, Ollie Norburn and Callum Lang were on target for the hosts, with Stephen McLaughlin, Stephen Humphrys and Simon Cox replying for Southend.

Asked if 4-3 was exciting enough for him, Ricketts said: “I’ve got a headache! Exciting, yes, because I thought the football we played for the first 25 minutes was really, really good.

“I thought we were excellent for the first 25 minutes, everything that we were trying to do, 2-0 up and comfortably 2-0 up.

“Then the goal, a bit of poor defending really from us to allow them back in it, and it just knocked the stuffing out of us and gave them something to hang on to a little bit.

“It took us a little while to recover from that, but then we got going again scoring.”

Ricketts added: “We looked a threat all the time in terms of scoring goals and, unlike us, we gave away some really poor goals.

“We should have been out of sight. It shouldn’t even have been a contest later on in the game and through some poor defending it became a little bit too interesting until the last seconds.”

Beckles and Cummings, with his second goal in two games since signing from Nottingham Forest, gave Shrewsbury a 2-0 advantage, but McLaughlin gave Southend hope when he quickly headed home to cut the arrears.

Skipper Norburn increased the home side’s lead to 3-1 just past the hour before Humphrys struck at the other end.

Lang, making his home debut, made it 4-2 to Shrewsbury seven minutes from time, but there was still time for Cox to drill in a third for Southend in stoppage time.

Southend’s caretaker manager Gary Waddock said: “To concede another four is always going to cause you a problem, but the goals that we concede are ridiculous goals.

“They’re so easy, they’re so cheap. We don’t get it going the other way.

“You score three goals away from home and you come away from a fixture without getting anything.

“The players kept going, but ultimately if you continue to concede goals, the outcome’s going to be the same in any game.”