Steve Cotterill pleased with Shrewsbury response
Steve Cotterill was pleased with the response to a half-time formation tweak and growing relations in his Shrewsbury side as Town fought back for a point at AFC Wimbledon.
Daniel Udoh pounced to convert after the break after Ayoub Assal had nodded the hosts into a first half lead on Town's first trip to the new Plough Lane - where they were backed by more than 800 away fans.
Town were much improved after the interval, by which point the lowly hosts had impressed and merited a lead, but Udoh's effort capped a recovery in which Cotterill's men were good value for a point.
Shrewsbury climbed a place to 16th in League One and have lost just once in eight, albeit are winless in four.
Cotterill felt a switch of position between the impressive Josh Vela and full debutant Tyrese Fornah in midfield played a key role in the fightback. Vela and Elliott Bennett combined brilliantly for the goal, while Fornah and Nathanael Ogbeta linked well on the left.
“I think we were a lot better with our second-half performance," said Cotterill after a second successive draw on the road.
"We started the game brilliantly and probably should’ve scored a goal in the opening 15 minutes, but suddenly they score and it puts us on the back foot. Maybe there could’ve been a 2-1 win in it for us but you’ll always be happy with a point away from home in a tough game.
“We tweaked one thing in midfield at half-time and it seemed to work. We talk about relationships in teams and the relationship between Elliott Bennett and Josh Vela was absolutely brilliant and their runs were straight from the training ground. The backheel wasn’t from the training ground – that was brilliance from Josh Vela – but it was a great goal, a great team goal.
"He (Udoh) has had better finishes, their two big centre-halves nearly got a block on it but thankfully they didn’t and it went in for us.
“We tried to (go on and win it), we worked our socks off, we got ourselves some great opportunities out wide and when you think about it, that’s the third game in a week and we’ve had an incredible amount of travelling this week."
Top scorer Udoh's 11th goal of the season salvaged Town a point after captain Ethan Ebanks-Landell's loose backpass led to a youthful Dons side heading in a simple opener through Assal.
The manager said: “Ethan (Ebanks-Landell) is disappointed about the goal, we spoke about it at half-time but he could’ve headed it away.
"He did well to get the striker away from the ball but then he decides to head back – which we have been doing a fair bit recently – and then there’s a little bit of a ricochet and we didn’t recover from it.”
Cotterill continued: "At the end of the day I say that if you can't win then don't get beat.
"The game we got beat in against Bolton we didn't deserve to be beat, it was a game we should've won.
"But the fundamentals are there in the team now, when we have these hectic weeks it's where it stretches us a little bit.
"It was brilliant we managed to get the goal, we wouldn't want them to go home with a defeat today, certainly with how we've played, because it wouldn't have been deserved.
"Hopefully they'll be OK with it, I'm sure they'll be more than happy with the boys' efforts today."
Midfield regular Luke Leahy missed just his second league game of the season after tweaking a knee in training led to his omission from the matchday 18.
Town are yet to discover the extent of Leahy's problem ahead of a free week, with seven days until lowly Fleetwood visit Shrewsbury.
But Leahy's absence led to Nottingham Forest loanee Fornah making his full Salop debut and, at times in an advanced role, the midfielder caught the eye.
“This is the first time he’s (Luke Leahy) missed a game through injury in his career," Cotterill said. "He tweaked his knee yesterday when he went to block a ball in training so we don’t know the severity of it yet.
"He’s a bit stiff at this moment in time and we’ll just have to monitor that throughout the week.
"We were disappointed with the injury but I thought Tyrese Fornah came in and did really, really well. He got his first proper game under his belt with 75 minutes and to come in having not played much football I thought was a big achievement for him."
