Sam Ricketts says he isn't frustrated despite Shrewsbury being held by ten-man Bolton

The Town boss feels that carving opponents open is the 'hardest thing in football' after watching his side fail to find a winner against 10 man Bolton.

Daniel Udoh struck Shrewsbury's second-half equaliser against the side bottom of League One, shortly before the Trotters had Jason Lowe dismissed just before the hour.

Despite one-way traffic Ricketts' side could not find a way through to take all three points in their final clash of 2019.

"It's hard to play against 10 men. We had a man sent off against Mansfield at 0-0 and win the game 2-0," said former Bolton defender Ricketts.

"You have to respect against 10 men it's hard, I thought we did it really, really well. We left them with very little in the second half.

"This is the aspect that is next to come in our game. We've done really well defensively but the aspect of breaking teams down is the hardest thing to do in football.

"It's probably one of things we need to work on.

"I don't think there should be frustration. If you take the first six games of the season out after the youth team stopped playing you'll find Bolton are nowhere near (in the table) where they are.

"I think they're right bang in mid-table. They beat Fleetwood here 2-1, Sunderland got a late equaliser here. "These are no bottom of the table side. They're far better than that. That's why the performance was so pleasing up to a point."

Ricketts brought on Jason Cummings in the 82nd minute and Fejiri Okenabirhie in added time as his side searched for a winner.

The boss added on his changes: "I was quite happy. We were knocking on the door. We didn't want to change too much because we were happy with the fluidity of what we were doing.

"We hadn't scored but it didn't need wholesale changes. We tried to make a few late on and the ball didn't go out of play for two or three minutes when we tried to make a sub.

"It delayed us getting Fey on getting two strikers on but it would've left us a little more vulnerable even playing against 10 men, I didn't want to throw too much caution to the wind because we were in control of the game."