Sam Ricketts hails Shrewsbury’s ‘controlled performance’ at Blackpool

Posted Sunday, December 22, 2019 by PA

Sam Ricketts admits Shrewsbury play dull football – but that’s just the way he likes it after they emerged 1-0 winners at Blackpool.

Fejiri Okenabirhie’s penalty secured back-to-back league wins for Shrewsbury as they celebrate Christmas inside the top half of the Sky Bet League One table.

Shrewsbury are the league’s third-lowest goalscorers but also have the third meanest defence and Ricketts hailed their professional approach in winning at a promotion contender.

“We’ve always struggled to get a real good game of football and it ends up being a bit of a grind and a bit of a battle,” he said.

“But for a side which are potent going forward and how many goals they’ve scored, we nullified them to large extents.

“We weren’t scintillating with the ball, but like I said, it was very hard to do so with the conditions we’re in. But we’re a hard team to play against.

“This is a hard place to come, so first and foremost, you need to be able to defend and you need to defend against one of the best forwards in the league (Armand Gnanduillet), who’s on a good run.

“He’s got height and power and they get an awful lot of balls in the box, they try to and we tried to nullify that.

“I don’t think Max (O’Leary) really had a save of note to make. We scored the penalty, Shaun Whalley had probably the next best chance of the game going one-on-one later on. I was really pleased with a professional, controlled performance.”

Blackpool boss Simon Grayson was frustrated with referee Seb Stockbridge’s decision to award Shrewsbury a penalty.

Stockbridge ruled Gnanduillet handled the ball in his own area, while Garyson was also dismayed that his side were not given a spot-kick of their own for handball.

“I went in to see him about the penalty decision,” Grayson said.

“He says that Armand’s (Gnanduillet) punched the ball, which my answer to that would be why would somebody deliberately punch the ball in his own 18-yard box?

“Armand’s adamant that he’s been pushed from behind, the referee said he didn’t see that. I asked him about why we’ve not been given a penalty just before they got their penalty and he just said that it wasn’t hand to ball, it was more ball to hand.

“In this day and age, I wouldn’t have a clue when you look at decisions that are given for and against you when it comes to penalties and handball situations.”

On his side’s performance, Grayson added: “I thought we played well in the first half.

“I thought the system that we played and the movement that we had caused them quite a few problems and you have to try to capitalise when you’re in front.”