To be honest, for a January night, I thought it was quite mild. I said to myself (as I was the only one in talking distance) that the crowd looked about 4000.
I enjoyed the match - not our best performance and Shrewsbury were poor, but that's credit to us. Evans has really instilled some grit - reminds me of the early Pulis days when we played some good stuff, but could really mix it and were very physical, and were also happy to contest things on and off of the pitch fairly and unfairly if need be. It's a huge gulf from managers, coaches and players standing with hands on hips, as we are kicked off of the park and match officials are giving every 50/50 the other way (usually with someone like Evans on the opposing bench) and barely an eyelid is raised from our players and coaches.
The only criticism is that we didn't kill the game earlier - we had chances to be 3 or 4-0 up in the first 80 minutes, with Shrewsbury only really creating a couple of fortuitous half chances as a result of ricochets around the box. Shrewsbury, finally looked more dangerous in the last 10 minutes as they threw men forward and created a couple of decent chances, and at 2-0 you always worry that one could lead to two, but to be fair it wasn't one way traffic in the last 10 as we continued to push forward and created chances. A two goal victory was fair and probably the minimum we deserved from a well drilled and battling performance in a Scrappy game.
Akinde could be a huge signing for us. He's the missing link for me - we finally have that big man who can compete physically and in the air up top, which we've been craving all season. He's also quicker than he looks for a big man - early impressions are that he's very much in the Iffy mould. Pringle was excellent too - his touch was excellent. Always seemed to get and keep control of the ball and his passing, crossing and shooting is another area we have been lacking and he could really fill. Willock looked quality when he came on - some good touches. I'm sure when he's match fit, he'll be immense. Roberts looks dangerous and a livewire, but I thought his touch, on occasions, was poor and positioning as an out and out centre forward not always great - time and time again, Akinde won balls and it was crying for someone to be near him or running on, but Roberts seemed to be too deep or too wide. My first thoughts on him are that he'll be a better winger in a 4-4-2 or wide forward in a 4-3-3. As I say, he was still a menace and a good option, plus allows Hanlon some much needed rest and competition. With rest in mind, I am a bit concerned about the amount of minutes our established, but excellent, back four are playing - I can't really see like for like quality replacements for them if any get injured, suspended or need a rest.
The ref last night was abysmal. Seemed to completely lose the plot in the second half, making some bizarre decisions - not all against us to be fair. Akinde, for example, in my view was a tad lucky to stay on having been booked, for catching the keeper, even if the keeper made a massive meal of it - what it wasn't though, was a throw-in to Shrewsbury; it was either a foul on the keeper or throw-in to us, as there was certainly no contact on the ball from the big man, even if the contact on the keeper was minimal. Similarly, there looked to be a trip on Akinde in the box before the actual pen (which was the right call, tbf) was made - the ref gave a corned; again it was either a penalty or goalkick as the defender made no contact on the ball - it's debatable as to how much contact he made with Akinde. Both sets of players and fans were frustrated with the decisions and things started to boil over in the second half, which made for entertaining viewing, but was unnecessary.
Finally, I see the comments from Shrewsbury's manager in the KoL saying that we were like a rugby team and it was a game of rugby compared to Sunday's match which was a game of football. he might be right on once sense, but most of the rugby was played by Shrewsbury - I think Owen Farrell would have been proud of the tackle on Akinde for the penalty! And it was Shrewsbury who worked the referee's pencil way more than GFC players. The Shrews' managers come across as a big time Charlie living off of a good result on Sunday and looking down on the day job and his peers, despite the fact that it was his team who were more responsible for any ugliness last night! That's the good things about the Gills, our fans and generally managers - we know what we are, accept it and work from that as a starting point - we're a lower league club with limited budget and need to scrap to achieve anything. There are too many Fancy Dan lower league managers, whose teams are in the same boat as us, who seem to want to present an impression that there teams play some sort of liquid football when they don't. I missed the Rochdale home game and watched on iFollow and for the first half for some reason we had the Rochdale comms and they seemed to want to present that their team play some sort of ultra passing game and the pitch would hamper them, whereas in reality, what they played was a physical long ball game, centred around smashing the ball to big men up front.