Graham Turner's thoughts after the defeat at Doncaster
Graham Turner couldn’t hide his disappointment after his side’s one goal defeat at Doncaster this afternoon. Billy Paynter’s third minute pen was enough to give the Keepmoat side all three points and Town didn’t create too many chances throughout as they struggled to impose themselves on the game from an offensive point of view. The Town boss was more than happy with his side’s endeavours but has concerns over the lack of goals after a third successive stalemate in front of goal.
“I thought we recovered quite well from having conceded a sloppy goal from a penalty and we dominated the ball,” he said. “That’s two matches in a row now that we’ve dominated the play but unlike Tuesday we didn’t create any clear cut chances. I thought at Brentford we were a bit unlucky not to win the game with the opportunities that we created. But today with the amount of play we had we should have done better. Overall though we did okay and I hope we don’t get used to becoming good losers. A lot of people will think we should have got something from the game but we’ve felt that on several occasions already this season and is something we’ll have to put right.”
Graham refused to get drawn into any kind of debate over the award of the early spot kick, saying that his ground level position in the dugout didn’t give him the best view of the incident: “It will be interesting to see it but I wouldn’t argue. Once the defender gets the wrong side and goes to ground you’re inviting the referee to give a penalty.”
Marvin Morgan had a couple of decent openings for Shrews but Gary Woods in the Rovers’ goal didn’t get called into action on too many occasions. “We were never really convincing in the final third even though it opened up for us a few times,” said Turner. “But we had enough of the ball at set plays and so on with good crossing positions to have done better. I can’t fault the players for effort, can’t fault them for keeping the nerve and wanting the ball and wanting to pass it. But circumstances sometimes go against you. Had it been no goals I’m sure the crowd would have turned against them but the early goal eased away any problems they might have had with the crowd getting frustrated. To have started like we did and conceded like we did is inviting problems.”
Town are now 279 minutes without a goal and the manager is aware of the issue - although he pointed out that his side are coming up against better defenders and the situation is one that he and his staff are monitoring. Sam Winnall’s injury was added to when Terry Gornell picked up a knock on his knee which prematurely ended his afternoon and leaves Shrewsbury desperately short of cover for the striking positions. “I don’t know how bad Terry’s injury is but it looks like he’s jarred his knee,” said Turner. “I’m fed up of answering questions about whether we’re looking to strengthen. Even with Sam’s presence we’ve been looking every week since the season started at bringing someone in and it’s obvious to everybody that over several weeks now we haven’t scored enough goals and there lies the weakness. We showed good character because this is a big club and they’ve started brightly. We could easily have folded but the players worked extremely hard so those are the positives to take from the game.”