Grant McCann highlights key Chelsea factor in causing FA Cup upset at Hull City
Grant McCann hailed on-loan Chelsea goalkeeper Teddy Sharman-Lowe after the young stopper produced a man-of-the-match display to thwart Hull City and dump the Championship strugglers out of the FA Cup on Sunday.
Sharman-Lowe almost kept City at bay throughout the 90-minute contest, bar the one effort from Gustavo Puerta as he swept home the equaliser after Mason Burstow's shot hit the post, making seven saves in the game before his big moment in the shootout.
That goal nine minutes from time cancelled out Luke Molyneux's fine goal, which looked to have sealed Rovers' place in round four in normal time, to set up a home tie with Crystal Palace next month.
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The 21-year-old from Leicester then denied Alfie Jones' curling effort in extra-time before producing a terrific save in the penalty shoot-out to deny Jones again following Burstow's wild effort, which blazed over the bar to win the tie following the hosts' four faultless spot-kicks.
"I don't think Alfie will want to see Teddy for a while again! It was a great strike from Alfie," said a smiling McCann, who claimed a third straight win against the club he left three years ago - incidentally, the Tigers have failed to win any cup tie since he was manager.
"We all thought it was in, it looked like it was going in the top corner, but when you're 6ft 4in like Teddy is and you can spring like he can, he showed why he's at Chelsea. He came for crosses, his kicking, his penalty save, his save from Alfie Jones, he was really good."
McCann was impressed with the battling qualities from his side against City, who again failed to live up to the pre-match expectation, after last weekend's stirring comeback against Leeds United.
"I said to the players before the game it's a really good benchmark for us because if we can get out of our division there's teams at the top end of League One like Birmingham and Huddersfield on a par with the Hulls, so it gives us an indication of how close we are or how far we are away," McCann continued.
"For large spells, I felt we held our own, we were strong in our shape, we were hard to beat, but that's just a little benchmark to try and springboard us for the rest of the season.
"They had loads of the ball so we had to be strong win one-v-one duels and crosses into the box, give and goes and we did do that for large spells of the game. We've just got to build off the performance and take it into the remaining league games."