Steve Evans hails ‘maverick’ Tommy Leigh after Bristol Rovers’ victory

Steve Evans hailed “maverick” Tommy Leigh after his late goal secured Bristol Rovers a 1-0 win over fellow strugglers Shrewsbury at the Memorial Stadium.

The Bradford loanee’s third goal in three games after 79 minutes proved enough to settle a tense contest of few chances and sent Pirates fans home celebrating a victory that opened up a 10-point gap over the relegation zone.

And Evans was quick to praise the attacking midfielder who has had a huge impact since moving to the club.

“To me, Tommy’s a maverick and he always has been, particularly at Bradford when they got over the line last year and got promoted,” Evans said.

“And I’d describe him as a maverick, in that he does special things. And if we all, the older readers, remember the film Top Gun, what have you got? You’ve got a maverick who does magical things but can annoy you.

“And Tommy does annoy me at times, he does annoy me. And sometimes he annoys players, but not in a bad way, in a humorous way, in a funny way, he’s a bit of a ‘Jack the Lad’. But he produces magic moments. And even in training, he does some things that you don’t see at this level of the game.”

Evans is refusing to take anything for granted despite overseeing a potentially pivotal victory.

“The three points could prove to be very significant come the end of the season,” the Scot added.

“We just have to do our work every time we take the pitch and try and accrue points.

“You look around the results tonight, Harrogate won 3-0 at Tranmere, that’s a perfect example to me. The league leaders have to go into the last minute to score against Newport.

“It’s really tough to get points. I find it easier to get points at the top of the league, because everyone’s scared of you. There’s no one scared of us. But if I’m around next year, they’ll be scared of us.”

Shrewsbury manager Gavin Cowan, whose side remain one point and a place above Rovers in 18th spot, lamented his side’s lack of quality in possession.

“We showed a lot of endeavour, great attitude, great application and when we defend like that, we’ll always be in games,” Cowan said.

“The problem is, when the ball turns over, if we’re not good enough in possession, they’re always going to get a chance. Really, really disappointing.

“For us to get to the next level, we need to be better with the ball. Constantly screaming from the sidelines, shorting our game up, wanting to pass it a lot more. And when we did it, we actually started to hurt them on a couple of occasions.

“I’m going to sound like a broken record with the referee but we felt like he was particularly poor and we didn’t really get a lot.

“I’m sure we can progress again come Saturday.”