Exeter City: Shrewsbury Town win a 'fantastic result', says boss Gary Caldwell

Exeter's Fulham loanee Luke Harris scored his first senior goal in the win at Shrewsbury

Exeter City boss Gary Caldwell says his side's 3-0 League One win at Shrewsbury Town was a "fantastic result".

The win in Shropshire, against a side who had to play 84 minutes with 10 men after Jordan Shipley's early red card, put 16th-placed Exeter three points ahead of their opponents.

City's first win in six games increased their gap to the relegation zone to 10 points with eight games to go.

"The result is really pleasing," Caldwell told BBC Radio Devon.

"The sending off is going to have a big impact on the game, but I felt like it potentially could have had a really negative impact for ourselves.

"It's never easy to play against 10 men, especially against a team as physical, as competitive and as organised as Shrewsbury, so for 10 or 15 minutes it was a bit of a worry - we were too slow in how we passed it, we didn't get to grips with it.

"But in the last 15 or 20 minutes of the first half we were superb in how we passed through, how we created so much width, we put six players on their last line and really asked a lot of questions of them and scored three brilliant goals."

Will Aimson broke the deadlock after 33 minutes before Luke Harris got a second eight minutes later and Jack Aitchison added a third deep in first-half stoppage time.

"I still want more in the second half - I said that to the players," Caldwell added.

"With eight games to go, whilst winning games is obviously very important, so is our development as a team, and the next eight games I'd like to see even more than we've seen today.

"But a fantastic result under the pressure we were under tonight coming away from home, the spot both teams are in the league, so fair play to the players for coming and putting that display on."