Shrewsbury Town manager Sam Ricketts was pleased with his side’s overall performance despite losing 2-1 to Burton Albion at the Pirelli Stadium this afternoon.
The Shrews goalkeeper Steve Arnold gifted the opposition a 1-0 first half lead while both sides netted in the second period as Burton Albion recorded a narrow 2-1 win.
In a game of fine lines played out in difficult weather conditions, Shrewsbury Town boss Ricketts said that he thought that his side were unlucky not to win the match.
“I thought the performance was good” said The Shrews boss. “I think we did enough to win the game and I am sorry for the players that we didn’t get the three points.
“What you can’t do is give soft goals away and we probably did that. Both penalty areas are where games are won and lost.
“We gave them the upper hand almost straight away with a freak goal but to stamp our authority on the game after that I thought was very, very good.”
Burton Albion were slightly fortunate to end the game with 11 players with striker Fejiri Okenabirhie having been fouled on a few occasions. Shrews boss Ricketts believes that The Brewers may have got away with a couple of decisions.
He said “Fey (Okenabirhie) is clean through on goal, that’s how I saw it.
“He (the referee) has given the free-kick but nothing else has followed.
“If he has given a free-kick there has to be repercussions as he is clear through on goal.
“There was one in the second half as well where Fey gets caught by the last man and this time it was a yellow card.
“Key decisions didn’t go our way.”
Okenabirhie’s injury time goal means that the player is now just one short of double figures for the season and his manager was full of praise for his performance after the match.
Ricketts added “He is a good young player, he has plenty to learn, plenty to improve but what he is, he is a goalscorer.
“He took his goal today very well and he had a couple of half-chances. He had a left foot effort, we got him down the flanks a few times early on and it was just a shame that we didn’t capitalise on that.
“If we score two or three goals today, we get what we deserve.”
The fixture at the Pirelli Stadium was Ricketts’ first as manager of Shrewsbury Town in Sky Bet League One.
