Portsmouth manager John Mousinho saluted two-goal Colby Bishop as the league leaders moved to the brink of sealing promotion with a 3-1 win at home to Shrewsbury.
Top-scorer Bishop took his tally for the season to 20 to give Pompey the chance to secure a return to the Championship after a 12-year absence at Bolton next weekend.
Mousinho: “It’s a fantastic achievement for Colby to get 20 goals in successive seasons. He hasn’t played every game, so what he has achieved is brilliant.
“The result is the most important thing but the performance is important as well.
“With Peterborough and Derby not playing today, it gave us a chance to push on and extend the lead at the top. It wasn’t in spectacular fashion but we got the job done.
“I don’t think we played particularly well to be honest. We started well by getting the early goal but we became sloppy. We were slightly better in the second half but I think we were a bit jaded from Tuesday’s game. It was a difficult game to bounce back from.
“If you would have offered me a win having not played well, I would have taken it.”
Pompey took the lead after only three minutes when Conor Shaughnessy crossed from the left and Shrews skipper Chey Dunkley could only put the ball into his own net.
Shrewsbury levelled after 29 minutes when a break on the left saw the ball reach an unmarked Jordan Shipley in the box and he easily beat home goalkeeper Will Norris.
Pompey regained the lead three minutes before half time from the penalty spot after clever play by Kusini Yengi resulted in him being brought down and Bishop converted.
Shrewsbury played the second half with more purpose but Pompey finished the job off with 14 minutes remaining when Bishop slammed home from 10 yards.
Shrews boss Paul Hurst said: “To get a result, you must put your chances away.
“We had a game plan, which after three minutes we were thinking ‘do we tear it up’, but we had to make sure that we didn’t concede again.
“There was always the thought that we were going to be blown away but they didn’t perhaps play as they wanted to.
“I genuinely thought we would get something from the game but a soft penalty for them saw us going in at half time a goal down instead of level.
“The penalty was a terrible decision. If that had been at the other end, it wouldn’t have been given, trust me. An experienced referee got it wrong. It was an easy decision for him to make.”
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