Pressure shows admits Shrewsbury Town boss Sam Ricketts
Manager Sam Ricketts admits his inexperienced Shrewsbury Town team are still learning to handle the pressure that comes with expectancy.
There was a tension in the Montgomery Waters Meadow crowd against Gillingham on Tuesday night as the hosts were locked at 0-0 and then trailed to the Gills before finding an equaliser.
The boss, who made more than 550 career appearances over his 16-year playing career, admitted Town’s crop of young players will become better at dealing with in-game scenarios over time.
“We’re a real young team. We have a really young average age,” Ricketts said.
“We’re also very young in experience in terms of how many games players have played. You forget the amount of young players that haven’t played 50 league games yet.
“They feel the tension as well when things aren’t going right. They don’t have the experience of being able to handle that situation and the game.
“After we scored against Gillingham it gave us a confidence boost. We did move the ball quicker – still not quick enough – but we were more relaxed. It comes with experience.”
The average age of Town’s starting XI against the Gills was 23.7 and only five have been involved in more than 50 league games.
With 11 goals, Ricketts’ side are the joint-lowest scoring Shrews team, along with last season and 2004/05, after 13 games of a league season since 2000.
The Town manager believes that Shrewsbury have to ‘earn the right’ to become somewhere teams will come and sit back and defend and are still learning how to adapt to those type of fixtures.
Ricketts, whose side welcome Sunderland in front of a big crowd on Saturday, continued: “The fans want to be entertained. They want forward, attacking football and so do we.
“(Against Lincoln) We were far too safe in possession and in positions we took up. We’re not going to be right all the time and we’re still newly coming together. We’re still getting used to being the team that will dominate the ball and have to break teams down.
“That’s different and probably the hardest thing to do. It’s something we’ve not worked on as much because it’s the final piece. We have to earn the right to be known as that team where others will come here and frustrate us.
“We know we have to be quicker with more intensity, be that passing or running.”
