'It's the biggest challenge in football': Danny Cowley on how Portsmouth finally managed to conquer 10-man Shrewsbury

Louis Thompson’s maiden Blues goal proved to be the match winner in a 2-1 success at Shrewsbury tonight.

Yet it took until the 84th minute – and against a Shrews side reduced to 10 men.

Josh Vela’s 31st-minute red card for a lunge on Ronan Curtis handed Cowley’s men the numerical advantage with the scoreline poised at 1-1.

However, like against Sheffield Wednesday and Cambridge United this season, it appeared they would be unable to capitalise and forced to accept a point.

That was until Thompson struck with six minutes remaining.

Cowley told The News: ‘Shrewsbury went down to 10 men after a rash challenge and in a heartbeat the game becomes much tougher.

‘We knew we had to play with patience and, if we did that and kept working the ball from side-to-side, then they would tire.

‘The biggest challenge in football is to break down the organised defence – and we like to play transitionally and quickly for the reason we don’t like defences to get organised.

‘When you are playing against 10, they don’t really attack and are sitting behind the ball and don’t come out.

‘So actually in some ways you’re playing against more players when you’re in a position to attack and they are in a defensive moment with 10 behind the ball. Very few teams do that when they have 11 on the pitch.

‘Steve Cotterill is an experienced, pragmatic manager, they are a very well-organised team against the ball, very disciplined, very good at distances, very compact, and we knew we had to be patient to break them down.’

Liam Leahy had opened the scoring for the struggling Shrews, yet it was cancelled out by Aiden O’Brien’s second goal for the club.

It capped his full debut for the Blues and arrived two minutes before Vela’s dismissal, which proved to be a pivotal moment in the fixture.

Cowley added: ‘Shrewsbury originally went to a 4-4-1 and then, about five minutes before half-time, went to a 3-5-1 and kind of showed us their hand a bit. That allowed us at half-time to make the tactical tweak which meant going from a back three to a back four.

‘That allowed us to get our full-backs to get the real width, our wide players to them come inside the pitch.

‘When you're playing against 10 men you need ball speed, maximum width, good spaces, and to be able to execute your skills and decision making.

‘Maybe some of that decision making and execution and skill wasn’t quite as good as it could have been.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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