Shrewsbury Town boss makes defensive demand after early goal frustration

Gavin Cowan has issued a “red alert” warning to Shrewsbury Town after another slow start left them punished.

Salop conceded inside three minutes in Saturday’s defeat to Gillingham, having shipped two early goals against Rotherham United a week earlier and another against Crawley Town before that.

Cowan was aggrieved by what he felt was a foul on George Lloyd in the build-up to Gillingham’s opener. But the Shrewsbury boss insisted his side must take responsibility and sharpen up defensively.

“I think football is precarious sometimes,” he said, when asked about his side conceding early goals.

“The focus before the game was setting the tone and making sure that we were really aggressive in the first 20 minutes.

“You can’t legislate for it. We’ve got to defend better. We speak about setting the tone, and then we decide to try and lend a pass in the middle of the pitch - they counter on us.

“Again, we need to be better. But before that, there’s a clear two-handed push on George Lloyd where we should have a free kick.

“When the ball comes down, we jump onto the second ball. And instead of just setting the tone and putting it on them, we decide that we’re going to give the ball back to them and then they hurt us on the counter.

“There’s an element of a referee again with another appalling decision. But we’ve got to defend better.

“We can’t just keep blaming referees. We can’t just keep blaming everybody else and moaning at Gillingham.

“In that moment, we need to be on red alert. And yes we’ve been hard done by, but in spite of being hard done by, we need to defend that attack, which we didn’t do.”

The defeat brought an end to an encouraging run for Salop, who collected 10 of their 18 League Two points during October.

Experienced defender Josh Ruffels had also acknowledged “frustration” within the camp over their recent defensive lapses, admitting before Saturday’s game that Town had been disappointed with the manner in which they had conceded.

“If we can rectify the poor starts, it’ll make a massive difference,” he added.

“We’ve got that togetherness and we’ve got that team spirit that can really get us through games.

“The longer it goes on, I feel like we always get stronger and stronger. Our fitness levels are through the roof.”