Oldham mauling leaves gaffer seething in JPT exit
An overwhelming sense of frustration enveloped Graham Turner post match as his Town side were comfortably dispatched 4-1 by a well-oiled Oldham in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy First Round.
The Latics raced into an early two goal lead and hit a third just before the break, but loanee Graham Burke gave Town hope in first-half stoppage time. The home side failed to force a way back into the game after half-time and the visitors notched a fourth late on to confound Town to a heavy defeat.
“We haven’t got over the disappointment of the performance and the result,” said Turner.
“I think generally it was as bad as we’ve played for a long, long time in that first 30 minutes. As a manager you take responsibility for the team selection and whether that played a part in our start or not, I don’t know, but you can’t play football at a half pace, especially against a side as lively as Oldham.
“The disappointment was that there wasn’t a sprint in us in that period, which is unusual for us, but we’ve got to learn from that, because in that first 30 minutes I thought it was the most inept performance we’ve put on for a long time.”
Turner made several changes to his side for the contest, but he targeted the JPT as a competition he wanted to do well in and was left disappointed by another first round exit.
“Yes I wanted to do well in it. The players we put in there, you hope to get a spark from them and you hope to see that industry from them and from the rest as well.
“We tried to stress how important it is, and stress how, on Saturday for instance, when we had Oldham watched, how quickly they started the game. I know they lost to Tranmere, but they started the game in particularly bright fashion and there was all the warning signings there and we never coped with that.”
Now now face over a week until their next game at Crawley on September 14th, and Turner is disappointed not to have the opportunity to get over the disappointment of the Oldham result at Bristol City on Saturday.
“Well that’s the disappointment now. We’ve had the Bristol City game called off quite late on. I thought with them playing tomorrow night, local derby and all, we might have caught them just at the right time but the one thing about it now.
“But it does give us an opportunity to take stock and do something about it, because we can’t put in a performance like that again.”
Watch the full interview with GT on SHREWS PLAYER