Graham Turner's thoughts after the draw at Crewe
Graham Turner was reasonably satisfied after his side returned to Shropshire with a point from their trip to Gresty Road this afternoon. Town had to come from behind to earn the draw with Jon Taylor’s 55th minute goal cancelling out Tom Hitchcock’s first half header for the home side.
“I felt we had some good chances in the second half when we got into some good positions,” said GT. “We should have done better with a couple of those opportunities so there’s mixed feelings but in the main we have to be relatively pleased to get a point away from home when we’ve come from a goal behind.
“We were slow to get going and didn’t really deal with their front players. We grew into it and we got better and though it was a difficult surface to be fair to the players, I felt we could have passed the ball a bit better. When we did pass it well we looked a threat and got into some good areas. We were poor against Walsall last week and today we were better and we looked a bit brighter around their penalty area.
“Our goal was a terrific finish. Jon (Taylor) did well for his goal and he’s capable of timing his runs like that. He did so in the first half and their goalkeeper had to pull off a good save and we’d like him to do that more often. He might have finished that off as well but it was a bright run and he’s intelligent enough to pick out those runs and get a few goals.
“I didn’t think the game was a classic. Chris Weale’s had to make a couple of saves but I’d say they were fairly comfortable saves. We should have done better when Tom Eaves got in for one and we had a 2-on-1 situation with Jon Taylor and Luke Summerfield so situations like that I think we’d have scored from had the confidence been there. You sense we’re a bit edgy and that confidence is low at times.”
The manager was guarded when pressed about the decision to give Tom Bradshaw another token run-out and specifically about his chances of a recall to a 1st team recall: “I thought about bringing Tom on and he might have come on earlier but I sensed the front two got a spark when we needed it and they’re both capable of scoring goals so I stuck with it. We shouldn’t really be talking about players who didn’t play after getting a point away from home. The starting eleven worked very hard and there are a lot of games coming up so it will involve a squad rather than a team, and of course Tom will be up for consideration. We told the players that didn’t come on today that there’s plenty of football to be played over the Christmas period.”
Graham was pleased with the changes he made to his side today as the focus switches to two home games against Tranmere and Preston next week. “We had Tranmere watched last night and they could have won the game with the chances they had (they lost 2-1 to Gillingham). But we won’t take anything for granted because they’ve got some decent players. Then we have Preston who are a big name by our standards but they’re both at home and I’d like to think we can cash in on them.”