Shropshire Star

Steve Cotterill: Shrewsbury deserved better

Steve Cotterill felt his Shrewsbury Town side did not deserve to be on the losing end in their 1-0 defeat at Accrington Stanley.

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Town fell to a fifth defeat in six League One games this term with the narrow reverse at the Wham Stadium, in which the visitors were unable to recover from falling behind early on.

Joel Mumbongo finished a simple rebound after just 15 minutes to condemn Salop to another defeat in an extremely concerning opening month of the campaign.

The closest Town came to replying was Tom Bloxham's volley moments later. Cotterill felt his side improved and were the better side for the rest of the match.

"They (the players) will carry home the disappointment tonight because they know we've done something," Cotterill said.

"We haven't been deserved to be beat today, I don't care what anyone says, we haven't deserved to be beaten, not a chance, not a hope.

"But we didn't start the game right and that's where the end result has cost us."

The defeat leaves Town 22nd in League One after a day only three matches took place due to the international break.

"That (reaction) to the performance or the result would be different," Cotterill added.

"After they scored the goal I thought we were the better team, certainly in the last 15 or 20 minutes of the first half.

"I thought we were the better team in the second half. Maybe if the keeper doesn't make a save from Tom (Bloxham) and we get that goal back early five minutes after, had that happened, we could've gone on to won the game with our performance in the second half."

The boss felt his side did not start the game well enough or react sufficiently for the opening goal.

He said: "No goal is ever a good goal you want to concede.

"We've had a couple of opportunities and stopping that cross, blocking that channel in there, Marko (Marosi) has made a great save even when it got in there but we have to react quicker than them.

"We didn't do that, that's why it ended up in the back of our net.

"Five minutes later we get a shot and they get a clearance on their goalline, we didn't get that clearance.

"In the first 10 or 15 minutes they started brighter, but that changed after the goal which is always difficult to do.

"In the second half we did everything bar score a goal. We put balls across the box, there's definitely chances in there that we need to take, we can't do anything magical to make sure those chances go in, we just need to continue to create those chances so when they come on a regular basis they go in.

"They didn't have many more chances today did they? And won the game 1-0, if we'd won the game 1-0 you'd be saying what a great result that is today.

"When we talk about chances created, we've created far more chances this season than we did last season."