Returning hero Bobby Grant earns praise of Accrington boss John Coleman

Posted Wednesday, February 12, 2020 by PA

John Coleman hailed Bobby Grant after he marked his return to Accrington with a fine opening goal to set up a 2-0 win at Shrewsbury.

Grant, a recent arrival on loan from Wrexham, hammered a powerful drive from just outside the penalty area high into the net to give Stanley a 13th-minute lead.

Jordan Clark added a second for the visitors in the 71st minute, firing home the rebound after goalkeeper Joe Murphy initially denied Ross Sykes, with the two Accrington goalscorers on target against a club they both played for earlier in their careers.

“You know what you’re getting out of Bobby,” said Accrington manager Coleman. “I’ve known him since he was a kid and he’ll give you his all.

“He ran himself into the ground today. He was out on his feet when we took him off, but he’s got that quality and you can’t give him a yard on the edge of the box because he does find the target and that was a great strike.

“A great goal, a goal worthy of winning any game, but thankfully we got the second goal to make it a bit easier.

“I thought Shrewsbury upped their tempo in the second half and pinned us back – and we would have liked to have passed the ball better.

“I thought we played better in the first half against the wind, but both teams did to be honest. I thought both teams played better against the wind and I thought they came on strong in the second half and put a lot of balls in our box that we dealt with really well.”

Shrewsbury are now without a Sky Bet League One victory since winning at Blackpool on December 21 – a run of nine games since the last time they collected three points.

They created several chances, with strikers Jason Cummings and Daniel Udoh both going close.

“I’m incredibly disappointed with the result,” said Shrews boss Sam Ricketts. “It’s not what we wanted at all.

“You’re not hiding behind anything but the game didn’t really reflect the scoreline. I think we’ve had 20 shots. We haven’t scored and I think they’ve had six and scored two. Two real sucker punches really.

“We started the game okay, far too slow, didn’t move the ball quick enough, didn’t get it forward quick enough with quality.

“We tried to address that at half-time and in patches in the second half the players really had a go to be fair to them.

“I can’t fault them for effort. Just a slow start in terms of tempo of the game and ultimately, like I said, we’ve had 20 shots and haven’t scored and that’s basically the problem at the minute.”