John Coleman hails Accrington’s fast start in victory against Shrewsbury

Posted Thursday, December 27, 2018 by PA

John Coleman praised Accrington’s fast start as they chalked up their second win in two games with a 2-1 victory over Shrewsbury.

Stanley went ahead inside just 30 seconds with former Shrewsbury winger Jordan Clark making time and space for himself to fire into the far corner of the net.

The Reds had more chances and doubled their advantage when Clark played the ball in from the right and Billy Kee fired home for his eighth goal of the campaign after 21 minutes.

Shrewsbury got a goal back in the 52th minute when Callum Johnson was adjudged to have fouled Fejiri Okenabirhie in the area by referee Seb Stockbridge and Oliver Norburn converted the penalty, but Accrington held on.

“We played well in patches,” said Coleman. “We had a great start, I compare us to Tasmanian Devils.

“We were very good in parts and felt we deserved our two-goal lead. Then the penalty was never a penalty, I was flabbergasted by that.

“But we showed a lot of steel and determination to defend in the last half-hour, although Connor Ripley didn’t really have a save to make.

“We had lost four in the league on the bounce but now we seem to have the belief and luck. We always believed the way we played was the right way but we weren’t getting the wins but if you keep at it, you will come good.

“We are in ninth place now and we are always looking up and looking to improve.”

Shrewsbury boss Sam Ricketts disappointed by his side’s slow start. They have now conceded early goals on their last two away trips, at Burton and Accrington.

“You can’t keep conceding goals in the first three minutes,” said Ricketts. “I wouldn’t mind if they were amazing goals but they were poor.

“We have spoken about keeping clean sheets and then we concede another early goal.

“We won against Coventry last week and as pleased as I was with that performance, I am the opposite today. We were poor in an awful lot of departments.

“You can’t fault the effort but we gave away two soft goals. In the second half, we did step it up but it was lost in the first half.

“We were still not brilliant in the second half but we could have got back in it and, after the first penalty, we should have had another for a foul on Alex Gilliead.

“As bad as we were, we could still have got something from the game and we had probably done enough for a draw.”