Gaffer happy with his sides work against fancied Luton Town
Town welcomed much fancied Luton Town to the Greenhous Meadow hoping to keep their good home form going.The win over Leicester had put Town in a confident mood and from the first whistle they took the game to the visitors and created a number of good chances. It was Jordan Clark who gave Town the lead with a calm finish but the home side had numerous more chances to add to scoreline.
After the restart Luton came at Town a little more and some might have wondered if Town would hold out. In the end a second goal from Jordan Clark steadied the fans nerves and Town ran out comfortable winners.
After the game Town manager Micky Mellon spoke to the press to give his thoughts on the game:”As a manager you look at the passing , the way we defended, the way we asked them to do things so I’ve got to be absolutely delighted with that.
“We’ve come up against a really tough Luton team who have momentum from last season so it was important that we hit their heights and stuck to our plan as it was a big test today.
“A lot of people would have been looking at us and asking if we could do it again after the big Leicester result. We said to the lads that good players go again, good players keep to their standards high and make sure they keep turning out the result and they deserve a lot of credit today because they did that.”
There was a special mention for Jordan Clark who got his first Football League goals of his career. His performances in recent weeks have continued to improve and it was only a matter of time before he got on the scoresheet:”I wasn’t aware it was his first goals but I’ve said before that he is a terrific talent and what is so pleasing is that he’s an example to any young player.
“He works so hard, he’s one of the first on the training pitch and one of the last off, he loves his football and he is grasping his chance.”
The first goal came after a lovely ball out from Connor Goldson to set-up Jordan, something the manager revealed they had been working on:”We’ve worked on that in training and it was something that we talked about before the game so for the lads to execute that in the game they should be really proud about it.”
Town piled the pressure on and created chance after chance but just couldn’t get the goal they deserved. It wasn’t until the second half that Clark got his and Town’s second and calmed everyone’s nerves:”I thought we have a lot of chances today but in the back of your mind you are thinking ‘we’ve been here before’ and in football you can sometimes get that sucker punch.
“Thankfully that never happened and we continued to defend well, kept our discipline, kept our standards high and thankfully got that second goal.”
Away to Leicester City midweek Town lined up with three centre-backs and got the result they deserved. They lined up in that way again today but for Micky it’s more about the way the player’s play rather than formations:”People go on about formations and shapes but I just want players to go and express themselves and go out there and play.
“At certain times today if you had taken an aerial picture of the shape that we are playing you wouldn’t have been able to pigeon hole it into one shape.
“My players expressed themselves today and we will continue to try to get good players onto the football pitch, passing it, controlling it, being aggressive about getting it back and being good in both 18 yard boxes.”
There was a league debut for 2nd year scholar Josh Ginnelly who is one of a number of the youngsters training with the first team. It was reward for Josh who has impressed the Town gaffer since he took over the managerial hot seat at the Greenhous Meadow:”He’s another one who has deserved it, he’s worked so hard and as soon as I came to the club he’s impressed me so much.
“I was determined that I was going to show there is a pathway from the youth to the first team and it’s important that the youth team produces us players.
“We are not a club who can go out and pay big transfer fees for players so we have to make or find our own and make them better.
“He’s an example of that and is an example to any young player that if they come to Shrewsbury and they are old enough and do well enough then we will put them in there.”
The focus now switches to more cup football with the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy trip to Deepdale. Preston North End will be fancied but Town will be going there to win the game and continue the good form going:”We will put out the best team that we can as we are going up there to try and win the game.
“I’ve always said that this is an opportunity to take the Shrewsbury fans to Wembley and they deserve us to have a right good go at it.
“We will go there with a team that we believe can go and get a result up there.”