Leam Richardson hails Wigan’s attitude after stoppage-time win over Shrewsbury
Posted Thursday, December 09, 2021 by PA
Leam Richardson felt Wigan deserved their stoppage-time win over Shrewsbury which took them level on points with Sky Bet League One leaders Rotherham.
It looked as though struggling Shrewsbury would hang on for a point, after Ryan Bowman found the net six minutes before half-time, to cancel out Tendayi Darikwa’s second-minute opener.
But Wigan substitute Thelo Aasgaard drilled into the bottom corner of the net from 25 yards to send the home fans home happy.
“I’m very pleased because this team always keeps going,” said the Wigan boss, who saw his side score their winner in front of the newly-named ‘Leam Richardson Stand’.
“And it’s about the habits that they keep during the week that serve them well on game day.
“We like to have repetition in our game, I didn’t think we were anywhere near our usual levels in the first half.
“Fair play to Shrewsbury, they set up really well, they tried to hurt us and counter attacked well.
“We had to be respectful to them and change how we were playing, and be respectful to the ball which we were giving away far too easily.
“I thought we sorted a few things out at half-time and I thought the lads were excellent in the second half.”
Richardson was refusing to get carried away at seeing his side pull level with leaders Rotherham – with a game in hand.
“This football club has a habit of being involved in eventful moments and seasons and we’ll just keep going,” he said.
“Our focus hasn’t changed since the first game of the season – we just want to be competitive in every game.
“In the first half, we weren’t as competitive as we wanted to be. In the second half, I thought we shaded it.
“And when you’re doing the right things over and over again, invariably something like that can happen.
“We’re delighted it did and fair play to Thelo for supplying the special moment.”
For Shrewsbury boss Steve Cotterill, it was “a bitter one to take” after such an encouraging performance produced nothing.
He said: “We were on the right side a few weeks ago and it’s obviously euphoria, and this is the complete opposite.
“We’ve deserved to get a result out of that tonight, I thought in the first half we were excellent.
“But we’ve just had too many heavy pitches and too many long journeys, which have sapped too many of our legs.
“You throw in a couple of injuries and it is incredibly difficult to deal with.
“You also want the substitutes to do better than that when they go on.
“After a dreadful start – and we talked about the importance of starting well – you don’t want to give teams at the top of the table that leg up.
“But for the rest of the half, we played well and I thought that would have been a decent point for us tonight.”
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