Shrewsbury boss Steve Cotterill: 'We can't afford mistakes'

Conor Grant's winner just after the hour handed promotion-chasing Plymouth all three points while Shrewsbury were unable to force an equaliser as their struggles in front of goal continue.

The winning goal, struck in high from the edge of the box, came as a low cross pulled back was left by both Elliott Bennett and Josh Vela in a breakdown of communication.

Town forced two just efforts for Plymouth's Michael Cooper to deal with, a Matt Pennington header and George Nurse looping free-kick, which was tipped over.

"We made a mistake for their goal and we can't afford to make mistakes," said Cotterill, whose side remain 18th in League One, four points clear of the drop zone.

"We haven't got back in, haven't got on the right side and given them a free shot on the edge of the box that they haven't had in any of the 90 minutes.

"In this this moment we're not putting the ball in the back of the net. Because we're creating enough chances, enough balls whizzing across the box for us to be getting touches on.

"Those are my initial thoughts, we made a mistake for the goal, one mistake and it's the back of our net.

"We've created chances, they may only be half-chances but they haven't created anything either to open the game up.

"That shot's fallen to them on the edge of the box and they've put it away and then it's an uphill task away from home with a partisan crowd.

"All of a sudden they're trying to take the sting out of the game, to up the tempo and we didn't get enough in it to get an equaliser.

"We had a good following that came down from Shrewsbury today, bless them with all that weather, we wanted to send them home with at least something and we failed to do that."

Town struggles in front of goal - they have netted just 28 goals in 32 league games - continued and they have now scored just twice in seven games and three from nine following a more prolific spell over Christmas.

While the stats flagged just two shots on target from six in total, Cotterill felt Town had enough good delivery into the box that could be converted into good opportunities on goal.

He added: "We're not putting them away at the moment. We're reliant on a couple of people and we can't be reliant on them.

"There's other people who can perhaps take shots and not pass it, to take responsibility themselves and get in the box, get their head on things.

"We've had a couple of fantastic deliveries today and we should score from them.

"Josh Daniels did well coming in, gave us some legs and some thrust down that side, to attack them a bit more, and when Tom Flanagan came on he played really well."