Shrewsbury urged to be ruthless

Salop progressed to the next round of the FA Cup on Saturday with a deserved 2-1 over York City, but they could easily have scored four or five in the first half to put the tie to bed – with the hosts missing several clear-cut chances.

It has been a similar story for Town in League One, they should have scored more when they travelled to Plymouth a few weeks back and ended up losing after a second-half comeback from their hosts.

Learning

And Salop’s skipper, who netted alongside Jordan Shipley, believes his side needs to do better to put these games to bed when they can, but he insisted they are still learning as they look forward to Wednesday night’s League One clash at home to Oxford.

“We need to be ruthless, and be relentless in that final third,” Leahy said speaking after the win.

“We could have easily been four or five up at half-time, but we weren’t.

“So we have got to look at it and see where we can be better and look back at if there is anyone (a team-mate) in a better position to score, rather than us just shooting.

“It is all about learning, and we will do that. With this manager here, we will look back at it and see where we could have been better, and we will go again on Wednesday.”

Town were good in the first half on Saturday, at times they played some nice one-touch football, and they worked spaces well to create clear-cut opportunities.

They got their rewards for that by getting two goals in the first half and leading at the break.

But historically FA Cup ties are very difficult, and when Salop came out in the second half, they were not at the races and even though York City never looked like equalising, Town could have been better in the second period.

But they held on, and they now take their place in tonight’s draw.

Leahy is happy to be in the hat for the next round and to have avoided a potential banana skin, despite a tough second half at the Montgomery Waters Meadow.

“It was a disjointed 45 minutes,” the skipper said about the second period.

“But it was York’s day, and we didn’t just want to be one of those teams that had an upset, and it was like last year at Anfield where it was our day, and Liverpool couldn’t slip up – we haven’t done that.

“The performance could have been a lot better.

“We have spoken about what aspects could be better, and we know for Wednesday that we need to be a lot better than that.

“But we’re in the draw for the next round, and that was the main objective.”