Manager proud of Town's ability to fight back
Manager Micky Mellon was delighted with the guts and determination Shrewsbury Town showed to beat Portsmouth after going a goal behind early on.Town went 1-0 down inside three minutes after Jed Wallace converted a penalty kick, but goals from James Wesolowski and Connor Goldson secured a fourth straight win for Shrewsbury.
Speaking after the game, Micky said: “You’ve got to win games in different ways and we showed that we’re capable of winning in a different way today.
“The boys knew that if they just kept calm and tried to pass it and kept grinding away that hopefully we’d get our moment, and we scored not too long after with a great goal from Wesolowski that sort of calmed us down and kept us going.”
“It was a tough game against a really well organised Portsmouth side who came here to make sure they were going to make it very difficult for us.
“We’re delighted with the result in the end.”
The win was the second time that Town have fought back from behind this season after conceding an early goal - after going behind early against Cheltenham two weeks ago.
Micky said: “It’s not a habit I want to get into. I don’t want to have to continually keep doing that.
“We’re disappointed with the start, but from that moment on we showed that we’ve got a lot of guts and determination.
“I’ve got to say that the fans played a massive part in that today, and the Portsmouth fans too.
“I thought it was a fantastic atmosphere created by two sets of fans that wanted to come and be heard and it made for a terrific atmosphere.”
James Wesolowski scored his first goal for the club in the win, leaving Micky delighted with the Australian midfielder.
Micky said: “I’m made up for him and he can do more than that, he’s such a talented lad.
“We have tried to play him a little bit further forward because he is aggressive getting into the box.
“He should be scoring more goals, we keep saying that to him all the time, but he struck that one really sweetly and we’re delighted to see it going in.”
Connor Goldson also got his name on the scoresheet from out on the right wing.
Micky said: “He’s stuck it in there, he’s made them defend and the goalkeeper on that occasion wasn’t good enough to defend it and it’s gone in so we’re absolutely delighted.
“We kept saying that when you get the opportunity to put it into dangerous areas you’ve got to put it in with some quality and I think we’d have to call it quality.”
Town’s next game is the mouth-watering Capital One Cup tie at home to Chelsea on Tuesday, and Micky is totally focused on that game now.
“Now it’s all about a fantastic evening on Tuesday night, an evening in isolation where we can go and absolutely enjoy it and give everything we can," he said.
“The stadium will be rocking, the TV cameras will be here and our players deserve to go and take part in a fantastic occasion, so we’re really looking forward to it.”