Steve Cotterill lauds ‘magnificent’ Shrewsbury after point with Portsmouth

Shrewsbury manager Steve Cotterill hailed his side as “incredible” after Portsmouth salvaged a 1-1 draw.

Striker Robert Street’s second-half goal looked to have helped the Shrews claim their first home win for a month.

Street headed the home side ahead eight minutes after the break with a clinical finish for only his third goal of the season.

But midfielder Marlon Pack’s 82nd-minute equaliser helped Pompey pick up a precious away point.

Having led it all went wrong for Cotterill’s team, who were forced to play the final phase of the game with a man short.

Tom Flanagan was needlessly sent off for a second yellow card four minutes from time, although a point ended an unwelcome run of four successive defeats.

Cotterill said: “I’m tired after watching that but it was an incredible effort from the boys, just incredible.

“We had 10 fit senior players going into today and the 11th one, Tom Flanagan, should have probably never had played.

“So huge credit to Tom and huge credit to the lads, I thought they were incredible.

“It was easy to give up before the game, when you look at it – and no disrespect to any of the young boys – but the young boys gave an incredible effort. I thought they were brilliant to a man.

“We had a really good chance after our goal to put the game to bed but their keeper had made a good save.

“And then we’ve probably made a couple of mistakes for the goal.

“But I thought my players were incredible, their effort was magnificent.

“I thought we’d done enough to win but that’s the trouble [when you don’t kill the game off].

“We’ve been short [of players] all season but that’s irrelevant. What we will do is enough for what is a huge point for the football club.

“I think they’ve been absolutely outstanding this week. You can be outstanding in the week but what you have to try and do is be outstanding on a Saturday.

“And my players didn’t give an inch against a really good team.”

Pompey boss John Mousinho admitted his side lacked a cutting edge up front.

He said: “It was disappointing on the whole. Not just the result but the performance in patches as well wasn’t quite up to scratch.

“Ultimately we probably came away with what we deserved.

“There was a lot of effort and endeavour, which was very similar to last week where the effort levels were there, but we just didn’t show enough quality in possession and in the final third to create enough chances.

“It’s disappointing because I know we’ve got the players on the pitch to do that, we’ve seen that over the last 10-12 weeks. We’ve shown we can create and score goals.

“But we didn’t take enough care in some of the positions we found ourselves in. Ultimately that cost us three points.

“The frustrating thing, which we’ll have to work on us as a coaching team, is that we didn’t come alive until we went 1-0 down.

“I know Shrewsbury dropped, that’s natural and that’s what teams do.

“But 11 v 11 I thought we were the more dominant side and looked more likely to score.

“We can’t just wait to go 1-0 down before we step up another couple of levels.

“Mentally it’s difficult to do but we can’t afford to do it. We’ve done that in a couple of away games this season.”