Steve Cotterill reflects on Town's Sky Bet League One loss away from home against Cheltenham Town.
Shrewsbury Town's venture to the Jonny-Rocks Stadium for Sky Bet League One competition ultimately ended in disappointment with the home side securing a 2-1 win.
Despite Town taking the lead early on, the home side were able to bounce back with two goals to secure all three points.
Town's Manager was disappointed with the result but was proud of the effort his team displayed despite going down to 10 men.
On the result:
"With 11 men, we were excellent today. We were so dominant and I thought there was only going to be one winner today when you look at the opening stages of the game. When you go down to 10 men, it makes it really, really difficult. We probably needed to get into half time to try and re-group a little bit.
"We only gave them one chance in the second half and that's happened to go in after coming back out off the post. As one of the lads just said, if we hit the post it goes out the other way. I was proud of them in there today because to a man they worked their socks off. They didn't deserve that result and it's a very tough one to take.
"We started very brightly and got the goal we deserved. We probably should have had another one before the second half. All of a sudden, if we are two goals up with 10 men, they need to score three to beat us. This is a difficult place to come and get a result, we knew that but I thought our lads were first class. They were running on empty at the end.
"There would have been more anxious moments for them within the first 20 minutes than we had for the last 70. We stayed in the game right until the very end but it was difficult for our boys today."
On squad news:
"Having Matthew, Josh and Marko back is the plus side but the negative side is we've lost Shaun Whalley in what will be a pretty lengthy injury. Getting the other three back in the starting line-up was important today. Shaun has a thigh muscle tear which could rule him out for 12-16 weeks."
