Dean Whitehead reflects on Town's 2-1 win over Bolton Wanderers in the EFL Trophy.
Shrewsbury Town earned another win in the EFL Trophy with a 2-1 win over Bolton Wanderers.
Salop Academy graduate, Ryan Barnett and Jason Cummings both got on the score sheet as Town secured a deserved win.
Town assistant manager, Dean Whitehead was pleased with the Shrews’ performance and feels there are positives to take from the fixture.
On the result:
“It was a good win. We had lots of players getting game time and new players coming into the team. It was good for them to understand what we are trying to do.
“I think the performance from Jan [Zamburek] was good. He showed what he is about today. He’s got good energy, a strong willingness to go and press - he’s going to be a good player.
“In general, we got in front with two good goals from us. We’ve worked on the press quite a lot over the past weeks - we got the rewards from that tonight.”
On using the squad:
“We have good depth and quality in our squad. You saw that tonight. We made a few changes and the lads haven’t played loads of minutes.
“Jason did well to get the goal. He’s a goal-scorer and he proved that again tonight. 100 goals in around 260 games in his career is phenomenal. Jason can play down the middle and on the right.
“We want to get our wide players in one-on-ones. We didn’t do it enough tonight when we had the ball but generally, we are identifying how we can hurt other teams.”
On the end of the game:
“It almost turned out to be like the weekend. We started the second-half really brightly and really strong. We were aggressive at the front end of the pitch and could have killed the game.
“The lads showed good determination and a good attitude to see the game out at the end. Momentum shifts in games quite a lot. Once they scored, momentum ends up with them.
“It’s about stopping that. We need to be better on the ball. We need to learn from setbacks and respond to them better than we have done.”