Steve Cotterill warns Shrewsbury's Luke Leahy to cut out 'petulant' bookings after Wycombe draw

Leahy, 29, served the first of a two-match suspension as his side picked up a creditable point in a 0-0 draw at promotion-hunting Wycombe tonight and will also miss Saturday's trip to Plymouth after collecting a 10th booking of the season.

The midfielder, a summer recruit from Bristol Rovers, already served a ban for five yellow cards and picked up his ninth and 10th cautions in his previous two fixtures.

Leahy travelled with the squad to High Wycombe but remained uninvolved as a changed Cotterill side featuring Saikou Janneh, Tom Bloxham and Aaron Pierre and starring goalkeeper Marko Marosi defended resolutely for a point in their fourth draw on the spin.

Leahy had started the joint-most games of any Town outfield player prior to a tweak in his knee in the recent trip to AFC Wimbledon.

Cotterill said: "There's too many silly, petulant bookings, he's been warned about that.

"He's got to make sure he does better when he gets back, he's got to do better with that. Too many petulant bookings for Luke."

Tyrese Fornah kept his place in midfield with Leahy absent. George Nurse switched to left wing-back while Aaron Pierre started in the league for the first time in almost four months and played his role in a spirited rearguard display.

Pierre only started as last-minute call following illness to new signing Tom Flanagan overnight. The ex-Sunderland man was due to make his debut.

Cotterill added on Pierre and Flanagan: "He (Pierre) was better in the second half.

"He (Flanagan) was poorly overnight. He travelled to the hotel and would've played. He was picked, we did the work with him yesterday.

"But in the night the physio had to go to see him, he was poorly, he woke up and was quite sick.

"This morning we had to change it quickly and Tom's gone back home. Hopefully he's alright, he's back at home now but he certainly isn't very well at the moment."

Shrewsbury moved a point nearer to safety as the gap between themselves and the bottom four was widened to five points despite Salop slipping two places to 18th.

It means Cotterill's men have been beaten just once in 10 league games - a last-minute screamer for Bolton - but are without a win in six league games, a stretch which includes five draws.

"We've shown great commitment, organisation, some great headers and blocks," the manager added. "All those things are part of the game, if you don't do them here you'll get beat.

"You can have all the possession in the world but if you don't score they're going to put you on the back foot all game. Every free-kick Stockdale bangs it in your box, he's very accurate and they build attacks."

He added of his side's committed display at the back: "That's what they're there for, we expect them to do that, that's what they get paid every week for.

"It was one of those games, certainly until the last half hour. We start with the two kids up front, to give Bowman and Udoh a little break because I think that was needed. We've got a three-game week amid three games in seven days.

"We've had some long trips and sometimes you need to give them a break. I thought the two young lads did really well for a good hour but I couldn't see keeping them for the rest of the game.

"We had a couple (of chances) but not enough today. We had a chance or two in the game but we don't always take our chances anyway."

Cotterill was left displeased with referee Sam Purkiss' performance. Purkiss booked man of the match goalkeeper Marosi for time-wasting eight minutes into the second half. Matty Pennington and Elliott Bennett were also cautioned.

"When you come to Wycombe you know what you're in for," he said. "What you need is a referee on top form, because those little moments in the game (can) stick you on the back foot. I don't understand what he was looking at tonight.

"He's booked our lads for something less than their lads have done, almost the same, and not even a booking.

"It's a really difficult game when you come here. It's one thing knowing what you're getting and the second thing is stopping it and I thought we did that tonight."