Shrewsbury boss Sam Ricketts seeks help from Steve Bruce as club remain supportive

Town dramatically grabbed a 99th-minute equaliser at home to Burton Albion through Daniel Udoh's first goal of the season.

And it is understood that the club remain backing of the manager despite narrowly avoiding a run of five straight league defeats with the late, late show against fellow strugglers Burton.

And Ricketts revealed to the Shropshire Star that he had spoken to former Villa boss Bruce this week about noises of discontent from fans. He was told by the Magpies chief to ignore criticism from 'keyboard warriors' and 'the minority' and revealed the support he has received personally from Town fans.

"Steve Bruce doesn't live far from me and I spoke to him the other day," Ricketts said.

"He has something similar at Newcastle and he spoke about keyboard warriors and I echo and empathise with what he was saying.

"I haven't had one fan come up to me and say anything. We give everything we've got. The points isn't...(right), but the process is right, it's 100 per cent right. This journey isn't smooth.

"I have constant emails and letters from supporters saying to ignore the minority, stick to it, we know what you're doing, we know where we are as a club and that you're doing well.

"And I'm telling you, we'll stick together - like we have to - and the process remains, the performances on the whole can continue like we are and having shots on target.

"We finished 15th last year and we'll better that and again it'll be an improvement and we want to keep improving."

Udoh's controversial late equaliser came in the ninth minute of stoppage time to break the hearts of the visiting Brewers, who had gone 20 games without a clean sheet.

Kane Hemmings had opened the scoring on the hour, leaving Ricketts looking in hot water, but Udoh scrambled in late on.

Burton captain John Brayford argued that referee Anthony Brackhouse should not have awarded Town a corner from which they converted.

Ricketts, whose side remain 22nd after avoiding a fifth loss on the spin, was grateful to finally receive some luck. He added: "I have to say it's about time we had a little bit of luck.

"Whether it was or wasn't a corner I don't know, but we've had zero luck so far this season and hopefully that's now the turning point. We've earned that luck."

"We've had no luck this season in terms of referee's decision, (shots) cleared off the line, injuries - and we've had a bad injury tonight.

"But what I will say is you'd be hard pushed to ever see a group of players give everything they've got in every single game (like Shrewsbury) and they've earned that goal at the very end.

"It was the least they deserved because of their endeavour.

"They know we've had a few tricky results, not performances, but as supporters all you can ask for is everything from your team and players.

"They pushed right to 90 plus nine minutes. We've had 15 shots again, seven on target, and it took to the last one to score a goal.

"But the endeavour was never to give in as a group and that's vital when you're going through a sticky period of results."