Academy Coach talks after the comfortable victory over Tranmere Rovers
Shrewsbury Town’s Youth Team ran out comfortable 2-0 winners over Tranmere Rovers on Saturday.The win was their fourth straight victory in the league and was the perfect way to get over Wednesday night’s 3-1 defeat to Sunderland in the FA Youth Cup.
Academy Phase Coach Callum McKenzie was pleased with how the players performed.
“I think we wanted a positive reaction after Wednesday and we got that today”, Callum told ShrewsWeb.
“I thought we started the game really well. They caught us a little bit by surprise with the shape, but we adapted. We were positive in possession which we asked them to be. We were aggressive, played on the front foot, forced mistakes and I think we dominated the first half.”
“Second half we got a bit scrappy after we scored the second goal. We’ve got to deal with that better, but on the whole we’re really pleased by how the boys have gone about their business today.”
Town took the lead with less than five minutes on the clock as Town’s free flowing style came together and allowed John McAtee to finish.
“It was a really good move and we passed the ball around really well”, said Callum.
“If we had one criticism of the first half it was that we had good periods of possession, but that final pass or little bit of movement let us down and I thought the first goal was where it really fell into place. John’s found himself in a good area of the box and finished it off really well.”
“It was a game where the boys could really enjoy the ball. Some of our one touch passing in tight areas was good. We switched the ball really well. The midfield players did really well to get on the ball and be brave at times and without that happening we wouldn’t have had the possession that we did.”
Aaron Gilpin then sealed the victory with a goal just after half time and Callum was pleased with how the right winger played.
“We said at half time that we’d had good periods of possession but never really broke the line”, said McKenzie
“We relied on Tyrone Ofori a little bit too much, so we asked Aaron and Matt Jones to come in off the sides and in the first five minutes of the half we’ve had an opportunity with Aaron and he’s made a good run inside and taken his goal really well.”
“It caps off a good week for Aaron really because he had a good game on Wednesday and today I thought he caused the full back problems and got himself a goal.”