Gaffer relieved with hard earned three points in Blades clash
Graham Turner was thrilled after his side overcame Sheffield United 2-0 in torrential conditions at the Greenhous Meadow.
Swirling winds and pouring rain plagued the afternoon, but that didn’t stop Joe Jacobson hitting a rip-roaring 35-yard screamer into the top corner just shy of the break. The Blades were reduced to ten men early after the break, and Liam McAlinden stuck 11 minutes from time to seal the victory.
“In many ways it’s a good feeling,” said Turner.
“Not only the three points today, but it would’ve done the confidence a whole world of good.
“It’s a relief for everybody, players, supporters, staff and myself but it was a hard earned three points. It couldn’t have been any more difficult given the conditions and the team that we were playing were decent, so it’s been a great afternoon’s work.”
The manager himself admitted to being taken aback by Jacobson’s wonder strike, but said he was equally impressed with the defensive display and clean sheet.
“It was a terrific strike. You’ll go a long way to see a shot like that with the power of it and the accuracy of it and it set us going, so it was a magnificent effort.
“We’ve talked about clean sheets over the past week and as a team we’ve defended particularly well. We closed from back to front really well, we’ve set targets and we’ve done well to hit that today.”
Town now rise to 14th in Sky Bet League One with the victory and Turner is pleased to see the progress going into a league break with next week’s FA Cup trip to Walsall.
“It’s nice to see we’ve gone up. We feel that we’ve started a six match sequence now where we play the sides around us, with the exception of Walsall in the cup, and discussed how we need to take a good points total in these six matches. We’ve got off to a good start.
“I think when you’ve got your three points you want to continue with the league, but it is going to be a difficult game going to Walsall in a draw that couldn’t be much tougher.
“We’ve got to go there now with renewed confidence from the three points that we’ve had today and we’ve got to go there with the belief that we can get the right result, and I do believe we can.”
See Graham’s full interview on ShrewsPlayer.