Shaun Whalley reflects on Towns 1-0 defeat at MK last weekend.
Whalley was named in the starting XI this week after starting his 2019/20 campaign on the bench last week versus Portsmouth. After coming on, impressing and making an impact, plus working hard throughout training, Whalley got his chance.
“Everyone knows me will know that I was disappointed not to start last week, especially the first home game of the season. You always want to start but I want to start in every game, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday. But the manager made the decision and we got the win so there were no complaints in me.” Shaun said.
“I’ll just work hard to get in the team. I think that when I come on last week, I impressed him, and I feel like I’ve worked really hard in training last week and he’s given me a chance today.”
Shaun feels like that he should have had at least three penalties versus MK at the weekend, here is what he said.
“I’d like to see all the decisions again. The first one, well I don’t know whether it was in the box or not, but he’s just pulled me and knew he made the mistake and I couldn’t reach the ball because he’s pulling me back and I didn’t go down. The second one, the give offside but I don’t think it was offside from the corner, but we did a good set play that we’ve been working on and it got me in and I knocked it past the lad and he’s taken me out, I don’t think it might have been offside but it could have been. The third one was the lad was going to clear it, I got my body in and touched the ball and he’s kicked the back of my legs in the box. The ref said that I initiated contact, I don’t know how when the lad has kicked my calves, but that’s what happened, we could have had three penalties, but we didn’t.”
Town had many chances throughout the game but just couldn’t find a breakthrough goal. Dave Edwards had a chance that hit the bar and a well-struck shot that was saved well.
“Edwards is great at getting in the box and everyone knows what he can do when he gets in the box. He’s a great finisher. Unfortunately, his effort just bounced off him and hit the bar and just didn’t go over the line. In the second half, he struck it unbelievably well, but the keeper made a great save. I think we had the best chances overall, but without any real cut ones, bar the crossbar as that was his reaction more than anything. It was fairly even and think we were really unlucky to come away with nothing.”
Town performed really well at the weekend and took the mentality of the previous week versus Portsmouth into Saturday’s game.
“It was MK’s first game today, so they were bang up for it. It’s going to be a tough place to come this season and their manager has got them playing some nice football and I think we’ve seen that today. I think our performance today was good and we could have easily come out with that win today, even a 2-0 win maybe, but the referee just didn’t want to see any fouls, for us and even for them.”
"To lose a game in that manner is difficult. Shaun said, “all the lads are devastated in the changing room after the game, but it’s only the second game of the season and we need to pick ourselves up and go again Tuesday in the cup. But yeah, it is a tough one to take with the only goal, we were really unlucky. It was one of them games where it was nip and tuck and they just managed to scrape a win.”
Town will face Rotherham on Tuesday night in the Carabao Cup. “It’s going to be a tough game as Rotherham have just come down. Even though there has been a lot of changes in both clubs, personally for me I really want to beat them because they stopped us from going up to the Championship. I’m looking forward to it, but we’ll just see how it goes.”