Shrewsbury Town boss Gavin Cowan frustrated by ‘football behaviour’ in Cheltenham Town defeat
Gavin Cowan was left frustrated by what he labelled ‘football behaviour’ and called for stronger officiating after Shrewsbury Town’s defeat to Cheltenham Town.
Salop suffered consecutive defeats at the Meadow with a 2-0 loss to the Robins, who scored twice within eight minutes of the second-half.
While he admitted his side were second best on the day, Cowan was frustrated by the officials’ handling of the game.
He said: “Cheltenham were excellent at really handling the momentum of the game.
“They were very slow to pick up the ball, very slow to walk for goal kicks and taking their time, staying down that little bit longer. That's credit to them.
“That's obviously a good game plan that they've come into today with.
“But you need strong officials there. I know we're not going to get every call, but I think our fans felt the frustration as well.
“Certainly on our bench, we were asking the fourth official, that didn't seem to be interested about the momentum.
“I predicted in the first 10 minutes, you'll wait until 90 minutes and then you'll book the keeper. Lo and behold, that's what happened.
“You just think the referees have probably learned a little bit more now about, I call it football behaviour.
“They've got to understand the game that little bit better. Some of them, not all of them, of course.
“But again, although we felt the officials were particularly poor today, it's important to recognise that we were also second best.
“We need to be better. Our fundamentals were missing, we feel like a couple of big moments in the game that didn't go our way, and then you are on the end of a defeat.
“We certainly didn't set the tone at any point in the game. So disappointing, but hopefully the lads can recover now and we can try and draw some energy back ready for Tuesday night.”
