Gavin Cowan hails attitude of battling Shrewsbury Town to continue revival

Gavin Cowan praised the attitude and spirit of his solid Shrewsbury Town side after they battled for a point at Crawley Town.

Substitute George Lloyd squandered a huge opportunity for Salop late on, blasting over from inside the box as full-time approached.

Despite that, a resilient Salop side defended resolutely to keep out a Crawley team fighting for survival, halting their own run of three consecutive away defeats.

Having officially retained their Football League status the previous weekend, Cowan was full of praise for his players’ attitude.

“Pleased on the whole,” he said “In what could have been a day where subconsciously the players might not have applied themselves, what's great for me is that we really honed in on our travelling supporters and the respect that we wanted to give to them, and we wanted to do it properly.

“Anybody who travelled here today will see that the lads were willing to get hurt today.

“They were willing to fight for the badge and the football club, against what is a Crawley team that had to go all out.

“I just thought game strategy-wise, tactically, we got it right.

“I'm really appreciative to the football club and the chairman. In times like this, not just the players, but everybody around the football club can take the foot off the gas, go a little bit easy, half-hearted, but our preparation is exactly the same.

“It comes at a cost to the football club. So, myself and the players are very grateful for that.

“I'm just really pleased with, we knew that they were going to be really expansive. We knew we were going to have to be really organised and hard to beat.

“Lloyd knows he's got to finish that one. If he scores that, we come away and it's the perfect away performance.

“Really pleased that the travelling supporters - if we could have given them a goal, it would have been amazing - but the fact that they've been really responsive.”

Town remain 18th in League Two on 48 points, with Cowan recording eight wins, two draws and seven defeats from his 17 games in charge.

He has overseen a remarkable revival, steering Salop clear of the bottom two, allowing attention to begin turning towards a summer rebuild and next season.

There was also a debut for Isaac Lee. The defender had been named on the bench seven times since joining from Flint Town United in January without making an appearance, but impressed on his first outing with several important interventions.

Taylor Perry saw two efforts go close alongside Lloyd’s miss, while Matt Cox produced several saves to deny the hosts, who were pushing to take a significant step towards safety.

Asked about the Brentford loanee’s saves, Cowan added: “We had chances as well. I think it was both ends.

“What I would say is Crawley have now got a manager who's been really innovative, something different, and I think we stifled that.

“From a game, from a tactical perspective, I think, they ended up abandoning what they would normally do, but they were still really effective.

“It was really tough for us today because we've got two youngest lads in there with minimal games, with Isaac Lee stepping in and Will Gray against a crowd here at Crawley who are just desperate. Everybody's desperate for them to get the points.”