Sam Ricketts hails battling Shrewsbury

Posted Wednesday, November 06, 2019 by PA

Sam Ricketts hailed the efforts of his Shrewsbury side after Ethan Ebanks-Landell’s goal on the stroke of half-time secured a 1-0 victory over third-placed Peterborough.

Posh drew a rare blank in front of goal, with experienced home goalkeeper Joe Murphy saving Marcus Maddison’s penalty early in the second half.

Ricketts said: “I think for the vast majority of the game we kept them at arm’s length pretty comfortably.

“Murph had to make a save off a penalty, an excellent save. Slightly dubious whether it was a penalty or wasn’t.

“But I thought it was a big testament to the whole team, not just the back lads and the keeper, but the whole team, how well they kept a real potent side who score threes and fours on a regular basis at arm’s length for the vast majority of the game.”

Ricketts was delighted to see defender Ebanks-Landell grab what proved to be the winner when he reacted quickest to turn in the rebound after Omar Beckles headed against a post.

“I’ve been asking, one, to be more ruthless in that final third, but also to score off a set piece,” he added. “If the ball’s there to go with some authority and put the ball in the back of the net.

“You think it’s going to go in with Omar and then it comes back off the post and you’re thinking come on, someone’s got to put that in the back of the net, and thankfully Ethan did.”

Peterborough have now lost their last two matches after being edged out 4-3 at Blackpool last weekend.

Posh boss Darren Ferguson said: “It’s a couple of games we’ve had we knew would be tough in terms of we haven’t got a league game for a while now, so it’s a disappointing return to get zero points out of six obviously.

“The manner of the defeat tonight, the tempo in the first half was nowhere near good enough, nowhere near the standards that we’ve set, nowhere near what I expect from them.”

Ferguson added: “They were just so slow – we addressed that at half time.

“We got to the last minute of the first half and we’ve conceded an awful goal, and that’s a turning point to concede so late in the half. You get in at half time and you address what you want to address.

“Another turning point’s obviously the penalty that’s saved, a really poor penalty, and we huffed and puffed, but the first half was so frustrating for me.

“I sat upstairs to get a better view and it almost seemed at times as though it was like a pre-season game. They didn’t play at a tempo, so we just played exactly the same tempo. We needed to quicken things up.”