Gareth Ainsworth was forced into making a late change to his starting line-up for the second week running as Wanderers prepared to take on Shrewsbury on Saturday afternoon.

Seven days earlier Fred Onyedinma withdrew from the game against Southend five minutes before kick-off, and today it was Hogan Ephraim’s turn to pull out of the starting XI a mere eight minutes before the match got under-way.

Sam Saunders, who was originally named amongst the substitutes, stepped in for the winger after he complained of feeling unwell in the warm-up.

“Sam Saunders had to get ready and it’s one of those things, but it doesn’t usually happen two weeks running,” said Ainsworth.

“That was totally out of the blue but I thought Sam came in and equipped himself really well. He’s a consummate professional player, and he did a fantastic job on their playmaker today.”

The on loan Brentford man slotted into a central midfield role in a 4-3-3 formation and duly delivered a man of the match performance for his contribution to proceedings.

Ainsworth had been forced into a change at the back with Sido Jombati, who attended the game wearing a protective boot, falling foul of a foot injury in training meaning Nico Yennaris stepped into fill the right-back berth.

The Portuguese defender had barely had time to sit down when Sam Wood put Wanderers in front after only 40 seconds – a goal which proved to be decisive.

Ainsworth said: “It’s a big win – we deserved the win. We really came out at them in the first half with a high tempo, put them under pressure, stifled the way they played and that was the plan all week.

“We set-up to stop Shrewsbury playing because we know they can play really well. To get the early goal was a bonus and give credit to Shrewsbury in the first 20 minutes of the second half they put us under a lot of pressure.

“They changed their formation and we changed immediately to match that – I felt it was the right decision. We then saw the game out really well with the big man (Aaron Holloway) coming on. I thought the ball was coming back quite easy – Fred’s got great pace and he’s a threat in behind but we were camped in a little bit.

“I thought he changed the game quite well for us and we managed to see out the points. It’s a fantastic result, for me, but we’ve got a long way to go and we’ve got Tuesday now which I’m concentrating on.”

A win against Accrington on Tuesday night will put Wanderers top of the league, with Burton not in action until Wednesday, after victory against Micky Mellon’s team took them above their opponents and into second.

“There’s no pressure on us – there really isn’t – and I’m not feeling it,” said the Blues boss.

“Wherever we are in the table you’ll see me kicking every ball because I just love it and I’m really with the boys. As I’ve got older I’ve probably calmed down a bit, but we have this club, this squad that no one fancied and we’re still there, we’re still defying everyone and it’s great – I love it.

“The boys aren’t under any pressure. The boys play this attacking, expansive football, we went three up top today to try and combat three defenders and I thought it worked really well. We’ll keep doing things like this.

“The boys are great, they’re a great bunch to work with and I’m really pleased they saw out the result.”