Sam Ricketts happy with Shrewsbury Town despite stalemate
Sam Ricketts insists he was happy with his Shrewsbury’s performance against AFC Wimbledon despite failing to find the back of the net, writes Ethan Wooding.
The 0-0 stalemate at Montgomery Waters Meadow came after Town dominated for the large majority of the match, but couldn’t find the decisive goal.
However, the Town boss admits there was no frustration at missing out on a crucial three points. He said: “What the game did show was we nullified them for large periods of the game just by being in control of the ball and moving the ball.
“Our level of performance was good. We moved the ball that much and penned them back that when they did win possession, especially first half, we won it back so quickly.
“If we gave it away, we had it back within six seconds numerous times.
“We just kept the pressure on and, when they did clear it, it was clearances with no quality and our defenders were on the front foot to recycle the ball again.
“It wasn’t a game of basketball, it wasn’t end-to-end, it was more or less us in control, knocking on the door.”
Shrewsbury are now unbeaten in their last five league games, lifting them to 17th in League One, and having seen his side record important victories over Peterborough and Doncaster previously, Ricketts is seeing a major improvement.
“I think what you’re probably seeing is we’re actually moving the ball more now,” the boss added. “We’re passing the ball more, the back players are circulating the ball through midfield, we’re switching play more, and that comes with training. They can feel the benefit of it.
“Talking to the players after the game, they can feel the benefit of playing with control and if we didn’t play with control it would have been a game of basketball, end-to-end and then you just start flipping a coin and I don’t like flipping a coin before football matches, I like to control them.
“There’s an awful lot going in the right direction – back-to-back clean sheets is excellent, five games unbeaten is very, very good, nine points in those games as well is very, very good so now it’s a question now of maintaining but also improving as well. In the cup games we controlled it without the ball, now we’re starting to impose ourselves and control with the ball.”
Ricketts also insists that the Dons didn’t play for the point, despite the away side failing to register a single attempt on target.
“To be honest with you I don’t think they necessarily were happy with the point, I just think we just moved the ball around well enough which meant they couldn’t get into the game.
“I think we controlled the game, you could see to be honest that they didn’t actually want the point because late on they threw three up-top to try and win the game.”
