This game should have been dead and buried by half time. In blustery conditions Shrewsbury played the ball around along the ground with a deal of fluidity against a very poor Hereford team. Morgan was a constant thorn in their side and Wroe was outstanding in midfield. The Gornell sending off was entirely justified-a rash but not malicious challenge. Until we got the third goal, there was a very worrying period where the defence was all at sea and does not auger well for Tuesday, even allowing for the fact we only had 10 men. Heaven knows what would have happened if Facey's shot had gone in instead of hitting the bar.
Shrewsbury had many an opportunity in the first half and had a thoroughly game of football to show to the crowd. Aftwer the break when town were two nil up an errant 50:50 attempt by Gornell with the Goalie ended with a red. After this we had a period of 'headless chickens'. That period was worrying. When gornell walked, town seemed to not know what to do. The high wind blowing from the south took Smith's goal kicks furhter than desired (he can often kick it too far) Morgan couldn't hold them up, and this caused the ball to come straight back down the pitch towards thed shrewsbury goal and because of this we seemed to then sit really deep just defending and knocking the ball away. Turner subbed firstly Ainsworth off for Hazell which seemed an odd choice at the time as it reduced further the opportunities to move the ball out of the Shrews end. Then he took off Wright, who although had got the goal, had missed a couple of excellent goal opportunities, and replaced him with Richards. This substitution seemed to do the trick and it made the midfield more robust and refreshed the supply forwards. The momemntum by town improved and we gained a third goal that sealed victory and an opportunity for town to practice passing the ball around and having fun at trying to score goals. In amongst this there were several misses by Morgan, Wright to name but two players. These should have gone in and how Wright can score one reflex goal yet fumble with the ball and fail to score into an almost unprotected net with his right foot is beyond me!! Does anyone know why Morgan's 'other goal' was not a goal? Oh nearly forgot the almost-calamity that was Ben Smith running too far out to clear a ball only to find it went to low, got collected and Delroy Facey taking a shot from 30/40 yards out and as it approached a completely empty goal area the Hereford fans running down to the front of their area shouting and jeering only to watch the ball hit the goal bar to bounce safely into the returning Smiths hands!!
I also was very impressed with Richards when he came on, he's had a slightly iffy start with some excellent games, some average games and some poor, but I'm sure he'll come good, he's got experience and pedigree. Wroe was absolutely outstanding, my MoTM, and I thought Ainsworth was dangerous, he showed some excellent touches and got his 9th assist of the season. I do hope we can keep him in the summer, although we do of course have little Jon Taylor who can come in and be a threat. I thought that Morgan actually had a fairly quiet game apart from his two goals, a few times he was clean though, but was too indecisive, and he ended up niether crossing nor shooting - one other occasion I thought he could've done better was the Wright chance I think you were alluding to; the ball was behind Wright and awkward for him to deal with. However, he scored two and was a constant threat, so it can hardly go down as a poor performance. The referee, however, was awful. He blew up for any 50-50 challenge, didn't allow play to on and disrupted the flow. Then there was Morgan's (non) penalty, where he was clean through and had his heels clipped by a retreating defender just as he looked to pull the trigger - a penalty and a straight red which the Hereford players seemed to accept but, bizzarely, the referee and linespeople didn't. As well, I think there was a hint of offside with Barkuzhien's (sp) goal, he looked across at the lino but he may have just wanted to make sure. Another mistake was Morgan's non-goal, a header from the edge of the area ruled out for offside despite there being a Hereford player on the post, and so anyone in the keeper's line of sight was clearly onside. The other possibly contentious decision was the red card (of which I had a perfect view), I think it was correct, but Tez didn't actually make any contact with the keeper, only the ball. The red was given for the lunge, and probably just about justified, but there was no contact, and Cornell's antics, clutching his face despite there being no way for him to have been injured, and then springing to his feet as soon as the red was out, was really disappointing. Ultimately, a very good win, and hopefully we can keep our form going into two potentially tricky away games, and maybe they'll play as embarrassingly as Hereford; the chants of you couldn't score in a brothel were pretty accurate. They created nothing and were abysmal defensively.
Good summaries on here already. It would have been an outrage not to have won but it almost happened. Hereford were poor (as their fans' non-ironic, over-the-top cheering of a first corner after about 30 mins showed) and we really could have won by 7 or 8 if our final ball and decision making in attack had been better. But that's fine - I like that we're steadily getting better. That seems to me a good sign.
It was disturbing, yet amusing to watch our team flounder when Gornell got sent off. The high wind coming from the south was causing Smith (who has a very strong kick) to kick the ball up the field for it travel too far and to bounce to their keeper or bounce just past an isolated Morgan. Smith was frustrated by this, but it took him a while to alter his method and by this time Turner took a chance to alter the squad.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/14875496.stm just watched the footage, Gornell definitely deserved a red for that lunge.
We don't know who the better teams are yet but I suspect we might already have beaten 2 or 3 of the contenders (Swindon, Gillingham & Crewe, who were better than some made out at the time and have shown it by winning every game since). We've seen already that we're a good side but that guarantees nothing. If we can be consistently good, we'll be good enough. If not, there are a lot of strong looking teams to take the top places and I was interested to hear Dario Gradi say the league is stronger than ever this season. He knows a thing or two. Rovers, Vale, Southend, Crawley, Rotherham - that's a tough looking run of away games up next!
In an effort to back up Dario Gradi (not that he needs it), I really don't think there's a single easy game in this division at all.
I'd agree with that Jenny. At the start of the season everyone was expecting Crawley, Swindon, Northampton, Bristol, Gillingham, Oxford and AFC Wimbledon to be real contenders with the signings they have made. Who would have predicted Morecombe to be top in September including a 6 nil thrashing of Crawley? Rotherham have lost ALF, Crewe lost and didn't replace players.
TBF, what I meant was he didn't actually touch the keeper, as opposed to breaking his jaw like he seemed to make out. Does look awful from than angle, though.
