Danny Cowley pleased with ‘patient’ win
Posted Wednesday, February 23, 2022 by PA
Portsmouth boss Danny Cowley praised the patience of his players after their late 2-1 win at Shrewsbury.
Pompey wrapped up the win six minutes from time after Louis Thompson hit a brilliant long-range goal against opponents who had played with 10 men since the 31st minute.
“We are pleased to win but we could have made it easier if we had taken some of our clear chances,” said Cowley.
“We had to keep believing and keep going. I was pleased that the players stuck to what we wanted to do.
“When you play against 10 it is about getting maximum width and ball speed and not letting them get 10 men behind the ball.
“We tried to implement that but at times the execution let us down, but it was a good win.
“We knew we would have to work the ball and play with patience, and if we did that they would tire and chances would happen.
“We had a good start to the game and missed a good chance, we needed to take it and then we conceded such a soft goal.
“That can knock you, but credit to the boys because they responded well. We got the goal and then the sending-off happened, which made it significantly harder as a consequence.
“We knew what we wanted to do tactically but some of our decision-making was erratic. We gave the ball away a little too easy at times and that disrupts you when it happens.”
Luke Leahy put Shrewsbury in front after heading in Elliott Bennett’s 14th-minute corner.
Aiden O’Brien turned home Denver Hume’s first-time shot to level and the Shrews’ Josh Vela was shown a straight red two minutes later after catching Ronan Curtis late.
Shrewsbury boss Steve Cotterill said: “It is disappointing that we couldn’t have hung on at the end because the boys gave it everything out there.
“When you are playing with 10 men, against a good team, for as long as we did it is always going to be very tough.
“Those two minutes have changed the game and we had to change things around tactically.
“We didn’t just want to sit back and invite them on and we talked about that at half-time.
“I thought we started the second half well and we looked comfortable. We had our chances in the second half and could have gone back in front.
“I am proud of the lads for their efforts. They dug in and battled hard, we made them work for it.
“We still have work to do for the rest of the season and we will keep fighting hard, the qualities shown tonight are what is needed.
“Obviously we need to break this run without a win (eight league games) and we will be working hard to do that on Saturday (against Burton).”
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