Goals from Ryan, Molyneux and Anderson give Town the win
Shrewsbury Town 3 Wigan Athletic 2
Saturday 7th September 2013
Team: Shaun Rowley, Ryan Hickman, Dominic Smith (Matty Jones 60), George Carpenter, Nathan Millis, Alex Fletcher, Dave Easthope, Scott Ryan (Sam Molyneux 45), Niall Flint, Josh Ginnelly, Kaiman Anderson (Jeff Watkins 60) Subs not used: Harry Lewis, Lewis Jarman
Goals: Ryan, Molyneux, Anderson
Last week’s postponed game at Morecambe allowed our physiotherapist, Nick Fulton, some extra time to get our injured players ready for today’s game against Wigan Athletic.
Wigan started well and their deep lying central midfielders controlled proceedings confidently in the first 45 minutes. When we were in possession we looked tentative and Wigan were quick to put pressure on any player dwelling in possession. The away side scored two very similar goals with neat build up play down our left hand side. The opener was finished by their centre forward and the second came from a deep run by their right back which went untracked by our midfield and defence. In between these goals we were awarded a soft penalty for handball that Scott Ryan powerfully dispatched.
In the second half we played excellently and before our equaliser under-16 left back Nathan Millis flashed a good cross across the face of the Wigan goal but unfortunately we had no-one advanced high enough up the pitch to take advantage. Our second equaliser was scored by Sam Molyneux, who replaced Scott Ryan at the break. A poor kick from the Wigan goalkeeper was intercepted by Josh Ginnelly midway inside Wigan’s half, and he slid Molyneux in and the finish was clinical into the bottom corner. The winning goal came shortly after, Dave Easthope broke the play up and released Kaiman Anderson with a looped pass, Anderson used the bouncing ball to his advantage and lobbed it over the advancing Wigan goalkeeper. With 25 minutes still to play we played out the game extremely well and nullified Wigan’s threat completely. Dave Easthope, Alex Fletcher, and Sam Molyneux kept possession superbly in our midfield. It was an excellent demonstration of controlled possession by the whole team and something we have worked on since the boys came back for pre-season. Hopefully the boys can improve or maintain this level of performance in the upcoming matches, next Saturday we travel to Port Vale.
Matt Rains