Time slowed down for Steve Cotterill as Shrewsbury strived to hang on for points

Posted Monday, January 03, 2022 by PA

Shrewsbury manager Steve Cotterill was thankful his side were a goal ahead going into the final 30 minutes as they secured a third win in four over Sheffield Wednesday at Montgomery Waters Meadow.

Matthew Pennington met Luke Leahy’s corner in stoppage time at the end of the first half to secure a 1-0 win for the Shrews, condemning Sheffield Wednesday to their second successive defeat.

“It was tough,” said Cotterill. “Our third game in a week against a very good side with some really good players and an incredible support behind them.

“It’s been an incredibly difficult week and the last 25 minutes went a lot slower than I was hoping that’s for sure!

“We started to dip a bit and I knew that was going to happen, I just hoped by the time we got to 60 or 65 minutes today we were in front which gave us the strength to hold onto it.

“If they had maybe scored a goal, I think that clock would have been even slower for me, our boys worked really hard in pre-season to get that base.

“When some of them are not playing it’s very difficult, as Sheffield Wednesday found out the other night against Sunderland after not playing football, you can lose fitness very quickly.

“It was great heart, great courage and great character.”

Shrewsbury had a golden chance to double the lead through Ryan Bowman in the second half before Wednesday piled on the pressure in the final half hour.

But a man-of-the-match performance from Marko Marosi thwarted both Fisayo Dele-Bashiru and Lewis Wing, while Barry Bannan saw a deflected shot go narrowly wide.

A disappointed Darren Moore claimed his Wednesday side cannot “cry over spilt milk” despite their second loss in three days, which following their 5-0 demolition at Sunderland on Thursday.

Moore said: “We’ve got to get back and find our rhythm again without crying over spilt milk.

“We’ve had the training ground closed for 19 days, we’ve had three days to come back in and then we’ve had five days to prepare for two games.

“When you think about that we’ve lost two games and all of the training sessions that go into that, it’s damaged our rhythm without a doubt.

“There’s no special formula to get that back, you can’t hide or duck away from it. What we’ve tried to do is cram a lot into the last four or five days, everyone is back now and all you can do is work on the training ground.

“It’s only us at Sheffield Wednesday that can get that rhythm back.”