Sam Ricketts: One hand tied behind my back regarding Shrewsbury Town availability
Frustrated Shrewsbury boss Sam Ricketts feels he has 'one hand tied behind his back' with regards to availability as Town let two points slip through the net late on against Gillingham.
Town were within a couple of added time minutes of securing a first League One of the season through Brad Walker's early header but Jordan Graham pounced deep into stoppage time for the visitors to level.
There was yet more injury woe for Ricketts and Salop, who lost Shaun Whalley to a calf problem before the break, while Shrewsbury players were left out of the squad due to concerns around Covid-19.
Ricketts says his side were unable to deal with the physical questions posed by Steve Evans' big and powerful Gillingham side, the boss claiming that as many as seven six foot-plus visiting players were pushing into the Town box late on to force a winner.
He added that, with losses of personnel to fitness or other concerns, Shrewsbury lacked the necessary physical options to come from the bench and negate the threat Gillingham posed.
Ricketts, whose side have now drawn three of their first four league games, said: "When we are playing against a team who have nothing to lose who have seven big big players up front, if we don't have big players to bring off our bench then it is very hard.
"They are going to get a corner and a long throw, so we need height on the pitch to help deal with.
"It wasn't a case of energy levels it was a case of trying to freshen it up with impetus in the game.
"It's bitterly disappointing to concede late in any game and to have the three points taken away from us is increasingly frustrating.
"But ultimately I thought the players stook to a tough task very well. They're not an easy team to play against and it was difficult to get into our rhythm.
"There were huge amount of long balls that came in and for 94 minutes we dealt with them very well.
"We probably ended up hanging on a little because we are struggling with making changes.
"I feel like we're playing with one arm behind our back at the minute, we lost a few players before the game, we lost Shaun Whalley after the hour.
"When you want to change the game, the impetus of it, we were stuck and unable to do so."
Josh Daniels replaced the injured Whalley five minutes before the break but it took until 10 minutes from time for Salop to make their second and final change as Scott High replaced tiring full debutant Ryan Barnett and played out of position on the right of midfield.
Jason Cummings and Donald Love were the unused senior options alongside new recruit Shilow Tracey and academy youngster Charlie Caton left on the bench.
"It was a big loss for us," Ricketts said of Whalley limping off before half-time. "Someone with Shaun's energy helps us late in the game getting out and squeezing up the pitch.
"It's hard to defend against a team when they go long and route one, you have to win that first ball but they throw so many bodies forward it's hard to get pressure up the top of the pitch.
"We couldn't change it, we're missing a huge amount of players through injury and Covid situations.
"When you're missing that amount of players it is very hard. You have to respect they are a team with seven or eight players who are six foot on the pitch. It's very hard to take someone off of that size when we didn't have someone as big on the bench."
