Defender frustrated by opening league defeat
Mat Sadler was frustrated after Shrewsbury’s opening day defeat at home to Millwall. The defender bemoaned his mistake which resulted in a penalty but he feels there were plenty of positives from the game:“It’s obviously a disappointing result. Today showed us what we are going to need to perform at the top of League One this season. Millwall will be right up there because they do the basics very well. There was a period in the game where we were 1-0 up and looking good but they fought back and managed to nick the win with the penalty. I was at fault for that, I did make contact so there was no doubt it was the correct decision to award the penalty. There is plenty for us to improve on but we will take lots of positives from the game as well.”
The 30-year-old thinks it will be vital for Shrewsbury to continue their expertise from last season in seeing out games after taking the lead:
“It was a big blow to concede so soon after we had taken the lead, there wasn’t much in it in the first half and we thought we could push on after getting the goal after half time. Last season we were great at seeing games out, we haven’t been able to do that today against one of the best teams in the league but it was a good test and a good example to learn from.”
The Englishman is relishing travelling to Blackburn on Tuesday night to play in the Capital One Cup. Sadler feels the tie will give the squad a chance to forget about the loss which would otherwise have lingered all week:“It’s brilliant for us that we have a game so soon on Tuesday so we can take our minds off the defeat. It’s a tough schedule in this league, you play Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday a lot. It gives us a chance to get going again and improve on what we did today. It will be important this season with the fixtures coming thick and fast that everyone at the club sticks together and pushes the team forward because there is a lot of good things happening at this club to be positive about.”
Micky Mellon fielded seven debutants against The Lions but Sadler feels it will only take a few more games for the side to gel completely:
“It may take some time to click together but on another day we would have won this game, we played well enough to come away with the win. I do think after we have had three or four games together we will be a different animal but it was fine margins today so we won’t get too down. The fans were great today getting behind us and I urge them to do that all season because we really appreciate it.”