Ainsworth staying grounded despite top spot in table

Posted Sunday, November 03, 2019 by PA

Wycombe may have kept their spot at the top of the table with a 1-0 victory over Shrewsbury but manager Gareth Ainsworth is not ready to get carried away just yet.

Rolando Aarons, on loan to Wycombe from Newcastle, scored his first goal for the club to earn a 1-0 win, ending the Shrews’ four-game unbeaten run and sending Ainsworth’s side three points clear of Ipswich at the top of the division.

But, aware that Town have two games in hand, the Wycombe boss is far from feeling complacent, knowing his players still need to up their performances if they want to secure promotion come the end of the season.

“It’s great to look at the table and be top, but it’s still early days – I’ll keep saying that,” he said.

“When you look at the quality of the other teams in this league, we’re doing really well.

“Today was a great win for us in some testing conditions. They played a part in things not really working for us in the first half, but we’ve got a good bunch of lads and they really worked hard for the win today.

“We struggled with the conditions but still managed to get the job done today. That’s what the top teams do. We just want to keep focusing on ourselves and our own performances.”

Things went from bad to worse for Shrewsbury after Aarons put the home side ahead, with Ro-Shaun Williams sent off after receiving two yellow cards in quick succession in stoppage time.

They had plenty of chances to level the score, with Scottish duo Donald Love and Jason Cummings both squandering chances to take the lead in the first-half, before Oliver Norburn missed a good opportunity to equalise late on.

But for Shrews boss Sam Ricketts, no excuses will be good enough, the manager insisting his side threw away the opportunity to walk away with three points.

“I thought we were by far the better team,” he said.

“If we’d have come away with a draw, I still would have been disappointed.

“To come to a side who haven’t lost at home and we absolutely dominated them in the first half.

“We just didn’t score, and you have to do that when you’re on top. We just didn’t get that goal first half and ultimately that’s cost us.

“I’m really disappointed that we’ve come away with nothing, the players are too because they know it was there for the taking.”