Alexander delighted with Salford’s character to force a replay against Shrewsbury

Posted Monday, November 12, 2018 by PA

Graham Alexander insisted his Salford City players could hold their heads high after securing an FA Cup first round replay from a 1-1 draw at Shrewsbury Town.

Adam Rooney quickly headed Salford, flying high in the National League and unbeaten since August, level after Ollie Norburn had given League One Shrewsbury the lead midway through the first half.

Boss Alexander said: “It’s a competition that everyone wants to be a part of and wants to be successful in and create memories.

“This is, I think, the highest ranking opposition we’ve ever played as a club and I think we can hold our heads quite high after today, but we know we’ve got another challenge and it won’t be any easier when we play them again in the replay.”

Alexander felt Salford were the better side in the first half. “It was a test,” he added. “I thought we came through it really well. I thought we were the better team in the first half and showed some real good incisive football.

“Going a goal down, I thought, against the run of play was disappointing, but the mentality of the players is superb again and we came straight back into it and I thought we could have been leading at half-time.

“We expected a reaction from Shrewsbury, which did come, but it wasn’t the whole half, I thought it was probably the second part of it, and we can do things a little bit better to stop that.

“Home teams especially are always going to have that momentum and they are two levels above us.”

Shrewsbury manager John Askey saw his team take the lead through Norburn, only to be quickly pegged back.

Askey said: “It was tough. I thought when we got the goal then obviously we’re in a good position to push on, but conceding off a set piece – it’s happened one or two times this season where we’ve scored and then we’ve stopped pressing the ball and allowed the opposition to get into our box straight after a goal.

“That happened today and obviously I’m disappointed that we’ve conceded off a set piece. One of the players has let their man run, but it was always going to be tough because they’re not the average National League team, as you can see by the players that are playing, so it was always a difficult draw.

“But towards the end, I thought there was only one team that was looking to try and win it.”

Askey added: “We didn’t move the ball quick enough. We had plenty of the ball but we needed to move it quicker and get more balls into the box and we were a little bit slow on doing that.

“It’s something we need to work on. But we’re still in there, still fighting and we have to push on to the next game.”