Academy Coach reacts to the 4-0 defeat to Wigan Athletic
Shrewsbury Town Under-18s’ run of four straight wins was ended emphatically by Wigan Athletic on Saturday.The Latics put four past a Town side that was down to 10 men for most of the game after Ryan Sears was dismissed.
Academy Coach, Callum McKenzie, was disappointed with the result, but was pleased with the lads’ attitude.
“I thought they started better than us”, McKenzie told ShrewsWeb.
“In the first 10 minutes they played some good stuff, played at a good tempo. I thought that after that we settled into the game and the most frustrating thing is that we were on the front foot when Ryan got sent off and then it’s a different game completely.
“We’ve then got to change our shape and we’ve conceded some really sloppy goals if I’m honest, so that was disappointing. But, I think the way the lads stuck to the task in the second half was good. We asked for a little bit of character, we asked for them to stick together and I thought second half they certainly did that.”
Sears was sent off with 63 minutes of the game still remaining and Callum was pleased with how the lads reacted after the sending off.
“It won’t be the first time or the last time that they will go down to 10-men and they’ve got to stick together and everybody’s got to stand up and be counted, and I thought they did that to a man”, Callum said.
“They caused us problems second half, but we kept our shape well, we were disciplined and we made some good decisions. On the whole, coming away with a four-nil defeat after the first half and the situation we were in, we can sort of except that.
“I’m not happy about the sending off and some of the goals we conceded were sloppy, but we defended well second half and that was a real positive.”
Town will now look to put the result right against local rivals Port Vale next Saturday and Callum is hopeful that the team can bounce back.
“We can take positives from the second half, the way they stuck together, the attitude, that’s something we will take into next week”, Callum continued.
“It’s a different game again next week, we are 11v11 again. We are not going to be too down hearted. The lads have played an awful lot of football over the last month, some lads have been carrying knocks, but they’ve been outstanding.
“Today was a little bit of a blip, but that’s all it is and we’re going to have a good weeks training, set up for Port Vale, go into the game really positively and get a good result hopefully.”