Steve Cotterill spoke to the media after today’s 1-1 draw with Ipswich Town at Montgomery Waters Meadow.
Town went behind in the sixth minute when James Norwood headed home but that was cancelled out by Shaun Whalley’s stunning equaliser just a few minutes from time.
Cotterill discussed the game and provided an update on Ethan Ebanks-Landell’s knee injury.
On the game:
“The first five minutes weren’t very good but then it became an even game in the first half. I thought they were excellent, they played with a good tempo and I thought they deserved the lead and that took the wind out of our sails a little bit.
"We worked our way back into the game in the first half and it was important that we didn’t concede another before half-time because that probably would’ve been the game done then, but I think it was a pretty equal game in the first half. In the second half, we changed shape slightly and we couldn’t get enough pressure on the ball so we made a change. Shaun’s very good at landing on second balls and there were a few times where we played a ball forward too long too early when we didn’t need to do that, but it had become one of those games and Shaun can do that, he can land on second balls and thankfully he landed on that one today and it was a brilliant finish.
“When the ball turned over, it was about us keeping it a bit longer. It doesn’t matter how good the other team is, if you keep the ball then it can potentially take that heat out of the game and we didn’t do that well enough in the early part of the game. I think we came into the game after the first five minutes and we could’ve scored a couple of goals ourselves in the first half.
“We needed to see what shape they went into [after the red card] and then we could decide if we were going to change shape. We were going to bring Saikou [Janneh] on and change shape but then we didn’t want to change shape [after the red card], so I’m glad I waited and didn’t make the substitution because we would’ve had to change our shape back so that’s why we needed to make sure we did keep the tempo in the game when the red card happened.”
On Ethan Ebanks-Landell’s knee injury:
“Whether he plays anymore this season, I’m not sure.”
