Shrewsbury boss Sam Ricketts was ecstatic with the result but not the performance after his side snatched an unlikely 1-0 win at AFC Wimbledon

The Dons had far the better of the game but failed to take their chances, and the Shrews nicked victory with their first effort on target in the 90th minute, as Leon Clarke headed home Josh Vela’s corner.

That smash-and-grab was not enough for Ricketts to excuse the performance that preceded it but he believes the win makes up for unfairly dropped points earlier this term.

“Obviously I’m pleased to get some points which we definitely deserved in previous games,” said Ricketts. “Our performances have been much better than our points total.

“Were we good today? No. There was an awful lot that was wrong. We set up to play a certain way and I didn’t see it all game, which was disappointing.

“What I did see was a huge amount of determination, commitment, blocks, everything which we’ve come to expect from this team.

“You can’t underestimate some of the blocks late on and putting bodies on the line and the quality of the set-piece wins the game in the last minute.

“It’s nice for us to be scoring in the last minutes of the game. We’ve conceded recently in the 94th minute to prevent us winning against Gillingham with their first shot on target.

“Ultimately, I’m very happy with the three points but not with the performance.”

Joe Pigott headed straight at Dejan Iliev early on, and later forced the Shrewsbury keeper to tip his 25-yard effort over the bar, while Ryan Longman also shot wide and an unmarked Steve Seddon saw an effort saved.

Those missed chances cost the Dons dearly at the death and boss Glyn Hodges was left scratching his head at exactly how his side emerged as losers.

“I would have been disappointed with 0-0 let alone 1-0 with the way we looked over 90 minutes and the chances we’ve created,” said Hodges.

“We made 19 entries in and around their box so I expected three points the way we were playing.

“It was their first shot on target in the 90th minute so that was the lack of concentration that the team is aware of. It’s really disappointing – we just switched off which is hard to take.

“We’ve got goals in us so we aimed to open them up in different ways – we’re not just relying on [Joe] Pigott and Ryan [Longman], although they’ve got the amount of goals they have because we get the ball in the right areas and we feed them.

“The boys played well and should have won it, so if they keep playing like that then we’ll pick up more points than we lose.”