Well, Joey, the stats were very much in your favour. Are you wondering how you didn’t get something from tonight’s game?
Yeah. We’ve lost the game, so I don’t want to be too negative towards Shrewsbury, but we’ve got to defend our goal better in the first five minutes. At the first corner, we’re a goal down and it gives them something to hang onto.
From our perspective, stats are only a pointer to a performance, the main one being we lost 2-1, so we get no points and that’s the most important stat.
When we got our more technical players onto the pitch, I thought we took control and we were certainly in the ascendancy towards the back end of the game, but you can’t give a side who want to sit back in a low block the opportunity to get a goal ahead.
We compounded that by giving them an early goal in the second period and by then you’ve got a mountain to climb.
There were loads of good things there, but that probably encapsulates the season.
You made five substitutions in one go. Was that always on your mind or was it a reaction to being 2-1 down?
A bit of both. We’ve had a long slog of games and we’ve not stopped since the Easter weekend and the lads’ bodies are working hard. They kept pushing to the end and we’ve got to utilise the squad.
The last thing we want to do is lose a game so those changes were necessary. I felt we got better after that, but also there is an element of the amount of load people have had and the fact we are playing a very physical side.
We had to stand up to the physicality and part of the strategy was to open up late in the game, but we certainly didn’t envisage being two goals down to a team like Shrewsbury.
A positive was Josh Coburn returning to goalscoring form.
Yeah, we felt the lad was maybe the last man when he brought Josh down in the first period and from the resulting free-kick, Luke Leahy handles it and the ref doesn’t see it.
You need bits like that to go your way and we didn’t get that today, but Scotty (Sinclair) puts a great ball in. I think it deflected off the defender and just grazes the bar and, as all good strikers are, Josh was on the move in the box and put it away.
We then had the best chance of the evening. I think it fell to the wrong person in Luca Hoole. You are wanting one of your strikers to land on that, but as it was, Hooley got himself in a great position and I think he’s got to work the goalkeeper and hit the target from there.
If we score the goal, I think we go on to win it because they were out on their feet and just hanging on to try to get over the line.
It was disappointing that we had to go a goal down and two goals down before we started playing, but it kind of encapsulates our season at this junction.
It’s to everyone’s credit for an end-of-season game it seemed a bit spicy at times and you had more than 700 travelling fans here.
Yeah, the fans were brilliant. It wasn’t spicy, you know what these two (Steve Cotterill and assistant manager Aaron Wilbraham) are like and the shenanigans out of them, that’s them. You have to put up with more than normal with the way they carry on but they are in the winners’ enclosure today and we’re not, so it’s frustrating, but you’ve got to take the good stuff out of today.
The real positives were how the lads played. They kept pushing and they certainly had Shrewsbury pinned in their half for a lot of that game.
The problem for us at the moment is keeping that back door locked and they were two really poor goals at the start of each half to give away and you give yourselves a mountain to climb if you are that porous in defence.
Aaron Collins made an impact as a substitute but he could barely walk at the end. Is he alright?
Yeah, there were a few hefty challenges in there and he’s got a bit of ice on his knee. I didn’t really play him in this game against them because you know what these are like with the physicality and the late tackles and the lying on the floor and running the clock down.
So I felt with what Azza’s got at stake, the last thing you want to do is play him against this type of team when there is nothing other than a bad injury coming his way because, let’s be honest, they are a glorified rugby team and they absolutely hump it. The fact they have had their end-of-season do and about 15 fans have stayed to watch it tells you the level they’re at.
But they’ve beaten us and I can’t wait to get into the off-season and build a really good team for next season because this game and the last couple have encapsulated our season. Lots of positives and bits to take out of it, but plenty to work on.
Josh Coburn had a couple of penalty appeal in the first half. What was your verdict on them?
The ref’s closer than me, so I’m not going to moan about decisions other than I did think it was a red card as he was the last man. He says Josh is not going to get onto the ball, but of course, he’s not because he’s been tripped up.
He gives a yellow and from the resulting free-kick, Luke handles it, you could see it in real time but the referee misses it.
I thought I’d never be at this junction because I’m desperate for VAR, as mad as it is. At least it takes away the randomness of decision-making at these levels. But it’s crying in the wind, really. We’re not going to get it at this level.
If those big decisions go for you, we get back to 1-1 there and you can see the type of football team they are. They’re not, they are just a hump-it, chase-after-it team. Steve’s been doing it a long time, he’s had a lot more promotions than me and we feel we’re crying about it because we’ve been beaten.
Again, from our perspective, we’ve got to be much better and not give these physical low-block teams a chance to get an early goal and sit back in.
More than 700 travelling fans for a dead rubber between two mid-table teams. That is fantastic support, isn’t it?
Tremendous, and that’s why I was saying to Luke there when I came to the football club, he was the captain and the standards were absolutely dog s*** right across the board and he was the captain of it. I don’t think he was particularly well-liked by the rest of the players, there was a bit of animosity in there.
And then he scores against us and he’s celebrating against our fans and I think it’s incredibly disrespectful. But that’s him.
He did seem to fix his stare towards the away fans.
I don’t know what our fans have done other than vote him player of the year. He deserted a sinking ship that we was captain of.
I get he’s got his club, but does he need to go and celebrate in front of our fans? I thought it was a strange decision from him.
I’ve always got on with Luke, but I think it’s disrespectful to the Gasheads. He’s got his fingerprints all over a relegation as the skipper and he scores a goal here tonight and wants to noise them up. He should have more respect for our fans.
They were incredible. Nothing to play for and 700 of them come up. That’s why I told the lads to get their shirts in and make sure they appreciate them.
We know when we come back here next season and we have something to play for, we know we’ll have a big away contingent and fanbase following us.
The pain of today and the frustration of this season kind of petering out only strengthens your mind about building a team that’s capable of getting out of this division.
For us, we get this Bolton game out of the way for us now, hopefully with a good performance and result in front of our fans with another sell-out which is superb, and then on Monday morning, the hard work starts to build an exciting team for next season.
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