Defender Demetriou looking for the team to bounce back after defeats
Defender Mickey Demetriou has challenged his Shrewsbury Town teammates to put back to back defeats behind them as they prepare for Tuesday night's trip to Accrington Stanley.Town were beaten 2-1 on Saturday by Northampton - their first league defeat at Greenhous Meadow this season.
But Demetriou, who suffered a serious looking head injury in Shrewsbury's previous game at Tranmere, says there are 13 'cup finals' left for Town to seal the league title.
"We've had two losses now so have to go again," said the former Kidderminster defender. "We look at every game as 'must win.' We've got 13 matches left and they're big cup finals to win the league. We're good enough to do it. We can't dwell on defeats. I've never played at Accrington before but we know we can beat them as we did it at home earlier this season. We're going there to get 3 points."
A win at the Crown Ground would see Town return to the top of League 2 as leaders Burton Albion aren't in action. Saturday's slip-up against the Cobblers saw Demetriou head in his 3rd goal of the season, but it proved to be just a consolation.
"We may have deserved a point with our efforts in the 2nd half, especially in the last 20 minutes," he said. "We didn't play our own game though and in the 1st half we struggled. They came with a game plan and stuck to it well. A lot of teams are doing that at the moment and we have to find a way to play around that. After the break we came out a lot more positive but obviously the goal was disappointing to concede, straight after half time. It killed us a little bit. If it happens again, we need to calm ourselves down and not panic. We've got 13 more games to win this league and that's the plan."
Manager Micky Mellon admitted afterwards the performance in the first half was poor so made a double change at the break with Bobby Grant and Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro brought on.
"The subs made a difference," said Demetriou. "Jean Louis is someone who you can't knock off the ball, we aim for him and it's worked for us. Bobby gets the ball down and gets crosses in the box for our 3 forwards to go and get on the end of. It's disappointing to lose the game but we can still go top on Tuesday if we win at Accrington. We've got to look at the positives with other results going our way too. We'll go again on Tuesday.
"My goal feels like a consolation as it didn't help us get anything from the game. It got us back in it but we didn't take advantage. I'm happy that I scored but I'd rather have won 3-0, not scored and kept a clean sheet with 3 points. This is our first defeat at home in the league this season and we have go go again. If we only lose one game at the Greenhous Meadow this season we've got a great chance of being there or thereabouts in May."
Demetriou also paid tribute to the medical teams at Tranmere and Shrewsbury after a head injury at Prenton Park a week earlier left him needing an oxygen mask and a trip to hospital after a heavy challenge.
"I'm all good," he said. "I thank the staff at Tranmere who looked after me and our own physio Chris Skitt. I'd have been panicking a lot more without him. It was a lot worse than people said. I missed training on Monday and Tuesday as with head injuries, you have to be cautious. I hate missing games so didn't want to be out of the Northampton match.
"I remember it very clearly so if I was knocked out, it must have been only for a brief moment at the start. It was more shock and Skitty said I'd lost a bit of colour which is probably why they took me to hospital. I wanted to play on and didn't want the stretcher but thankfully I'm okay.
"I was in their physio room when we scored near the end. At the time I didn't know whether it was us or them. Our made our trainee physio get in touch with my girlfriend to let her know I was fine as I knew she'd be panicking listening to it on the radio."