Gaffer's thoughts after pre-season game with Blues
Micky Mellon was pleased as Shrewsbury managed to get the win against Birmingham City but he was keen not to get carried away at this point in pre-season:
“It is important that players get minutes under their belt. It was always the plan to do what we did. It is important that individuals improve their performance levels as well and we did a little bit more structure work yesterday on the team shape with the group that played the first hour. It was nice to see that coming through and it is always nice to win games of football. The most important thing is we are trying to build a group performance wise. We speak about starting quickly and getting to a good tempo so that is one of the things we have spoken about and that came through. Like I always say if we get that performance right then the results will take care of themselves.”
“I think the first two games are about time and then you want to start building a structure into the third game and look at a different type of challenge that we are going to face against Solihull on Saturday and then we have the Hibernian game. We are building up and up and it was pleasing to see things that we have been learning on and the things we have learned from Saturday coming through so it was a pleasing performance.”
The 44-year-old was delighted with the performance of all the young players but he gave Ethan Jones particular praise:
“I was really pleased about Ethan Jones. We are a club that is about our youth and it was a good opportunity to get them on and they did that justice. They have shown that the potential is there and every opportunity you get like tonight will help them improve as footballers. Ethan did what he does which is score goals but more than that I thought he played with a plan and got himself in great positions and worked very hard. The other lads came on and did equally well so that is pleasing.”
Mellon felt the new signings mixed well together and is confident they can make a big difference to the team:
“We have done a lot to introduce the new players and it was nice to see them playing how we wanted to and playing with a purpose. We know what we want to do when we have the ball and it is something to build on. I won’t get carried away because it is pre-season and I didn’t get carried away on Saturday. That game let us view what we did wrong and change it going into tonight’s game and I believe we can move it on again. We had watched the new guys and had an idea of what they could do for us. We went about our work early and got them in and tonight they have done that well and it is very promising.”