Fleetwood Town head coach Joey Barton spoke after Town's 2-2 draw with Shrewsbury Town at Highbury Stadium.
Barton saw his side battle hard against Sam Ricketts’ side, as Shaun Whalley opened the scoring for the visitors. Lew Coyle scored the equaliser as well as opening his account at the club with a striker finish across goal.
Substitute Jason Cummings scored with nine minutes to go to give Shrewsbury the lead again, but it was Town’s substitute Josh Morris who gave both teams a share of the points.
Here’s what Barton had to say in his post-match interview…
On the 2-2 draw…
“A game that we are disappointed that we haven’t won despite going behind twice in it. The lads showed phenomenal character and gave everything right until the end.
“The goals we gave away were not of the required standard. The first goal is one we should deal with, and it looks like there’s been a breakdown in communication with a number of small mistakes happening which ends up with Alex Cairns having to make a save. That results in the ball falling to one of their players. We think it was offside before, but no VAR thankfully in League One so we don’t get a chance to look back at that.
“The lads went out in the second half and got a good goal. I am delighted for Lewie Coyle because honestly he works so hard on his game and has finally joined us on a permanent and gets a goal. I’m really pleased for him.
“I thought that the goal was going to be the springboard where we were going to take over the game and get momentum from it. We kept huffing and puffing but couldn’t get that winning goal.”
On potential signings…
“Hopefully before the end of January we can get a couple of new faces in who can give us options because I think the group is in a really good place. We want to be winning more games, but we are in a position where we can hopefully have a very exciting finish to the campaign.”
On the next game away to Bristol Rovers…
“We played Bristol not long ago here in a game we were disappointed not to win. I thought we were excellent on the day without scoring a goal. It’ll be another tough test, as it’s not an easy place to go down there.
“They’re having a little bit of a tough time themselves since the managerial change, and we’ve got to exploit that and deliver a Fleetwood Town performance, which is high pressure and high energy, with exciting attacking football.”