Shaun Whalley: Relationship with Shrewsbury fans won’t change

Whalley helped Accrington Stanley beat Steve Cotterill’s men 1-0 and celebrated his 35th birthday yesterday on a memorable weekend for the winger.

His return to Shropshire was an immediate one having ended seven years at the club, for whom he made more than 250 appearances, after being released by Cotterill.

Whalley posed for photos and signed autographs before and after the game, in which he gave a lively first-half performance ahead of being withdrawn 20 minutes from time, before Tommy Leigh’s winner.

“I knew I’d get a good reception, my relationship with the Shrewsbury fans will never change,” Whalley said. “It felt a little bit strange, I did the same thing I’d normally do for a Shrewsbury home game, stay down on Friday night.

“I’m a professional, Accrington pay my wages, everyone knows I like Accrington as a club, it was a good win.

“I made sure I got here early, like quarter to one, to say hello to everyone. That’s how it is in football, once you leave that’s it, so it was good to see some people, I apologise for not seeing everyone.

“I wanted to get it out the way so come half-one I was ready.

“Everyone knows how much I love the club and I’m so happy it’s reciprocated.

“I’ve had great times for seven years and wouldn’t change it for the world. I hope we both have a good season.”

The winger added: “It was a close game I thought we started well and looked by far the better team.

“Then it was fairly even and the sending off meant Shrewsbury sat back and we had the ball, got the goal and thankfully got the win.

“I feel great, it’s a good start for us, we’re ambitious and hungry after finishing 11th and 12th, we’re looking to improve.”

Shrewsbury manager Cotterill bemoaned refereeing decisions after his side fell to their first defeat of the season at home to Stanley.

Salop were dominant for 57 minutes at the Meadow in their first home game of the season, creating a number of really good opportunities to open the scoring.

And most of them fell to Ryan Bowman – he got into several great positions to give the home side the lead – and secure Salop’s first goal of the campaign – in a first half where Shrewsbury piled on the pressure.

And they started the second half in the same way, with Julien Dacosta, who was lively all game, having a shot which looked destined for the bottom corner, but it was saved by the impressive Lukas Jensen.

But the complexion of the game changed when defender Tom Flanagan was sent off after receiving two bookings, just seconds apart.

The incident came about after Marko Marosi was involved in a confrontation with Leigh, pushing him to the ground. This caused chaos in the penalty area.

Flanagan was awarded his first card for getting involved and his second card for retaliation.

And on 77 minutes Mitch Clark sent in a lovely cross and half-time substitute Tommy Leigh rose highest to head the ball into the corner of Salop’s net.

Town boss Cotterill described the decision made by the referee and the linesman as ‘perplexing’ and he believed the decision played a huge factor in the final result.

He said: “The sending-off has cost us the game. I still don’t quite get it. I don’t know how he can come up with two yellow cards in that little melee that’s gone on.

“Tom Flanagan was booked for spinning the lad around, yes definitely a booking. But I don’t see anything else, he’s actually taking the lad away from Marko Marosi.

“I don’t know how the referee can come up with two yellow cards in that space of time. You can’t afford to go down to 10 men in the 57th minute, it’s very, very difficult then to win the game.”

After going down to ten men, George Nurse moved to the left side of the back three, and Jordan Shipley moved to left wingback.

There was an initial re-organisation period as Shrews shifted to a 3-4-1-1 with Tom Bayliss playing off Bowman.

Accrington had their first real spell of dominance in the match, understandably with their numerical advantage.

But then Shrewsbury began to settle.

Salop’s resistance was broken with just over 10 minutes remaining, and the goal, scored by Leigh, would prove to be a decisive one.

But Cotterill was disappointed with how his side defended the goal.

Town’s boss felt there was more his side could have done, to firstly prevent the cross, and secondly, to prevent Leigh from winning the header.

He said: “The cross could have been closed down by two players, not one.

“We’ve got on the wrong side for the header, we need to be inside him, not on the outside, that’s why he gets a clear header. From our point of view, it was not very good at all.”