Gareth Ainsworth praised his Shrewsbury side’s “sensational” commitment after they secured a 3-2 home win against promotion favourites Birmingham in his first game in charge.
The Shrews looked revitalised under Ainsworth, with Aaron Pierre, who played under the new manager at Wycombe, getting the first goal of his reign after half-an-hour, sweeping home from close range.
John Marquis and Tom Bloxham also found the back of the net after the Shrews had gone into the game having only scored one goal in five matches.
Blues pulled it back to 2-1 just before the break through a composed finish from Tomoki Iwata, while Jay Stansfield scored a late penalty, but they suffered just their second loss of the season.
“It’s good to see the lads can take on information really well,” Ainsworth said. “They can buy into what I wanted to do and commit like you couldn’t believe.
“To a man, the commitment that they showed today was sensational, it really was.
“The result is almost a by-product of what we gave out there. The boys deserved the win.
“Some of the Birmingham players I know said when they came off that ‘your boys deserved that because they have given us one hell of a game’.
“The players were committed. They went for every tackle, header and they never stopped running.
“It is not surprising that some of the players were going down injured and going off with tightness and they were knackered.
“I said to everyone they will come off that pitch with nothing left and I am proud to say that I was true to my word and the boys were sensational.
“I said in the week that we slightly changed formation for Birmingham as we have massive respect and they are a brilliant side.”
Birmingham boss Chris Davies said: “In that situation, you come away from home and you have 80 percent of the ball after 20 minutes. It’s a good start.
“You want to have a couple more shots and that’s what we need to do, but it’s ultimately about not conceding.
“We looked a little bit more dangerous when Lyndon (Dykes) came on in terms of crosses and ariel threat.
“The players are obviously extremely disappointed, the key thing for me is the sort of standards, attitude and mentality that has been there since day one.
“We were far too soft, which is unacceptable, and I won’t allow it.
“Shrewsbury are obviously bottom of the league and lost seven games in a row and they are down there for a reason. It was the sort of game we should have made an impact in, but we didn’t.”
