Shrewsbury Town’s on-loan goalkeeper Luke Daniels has attracted glowing praise from ex-England international Joe Corrigan, his goalkeeping coach at West Bromwich Albion.
Corrigan, who has local family links, said the promising Daniels had “progressed beyond belief” since linking up with Town at the start of the season.
Luke Daniels
Corrigan has received plenty of positive feedback about Daniels from Shrewsbury supporters when he’s made family visits to Hanwood and he’s pleased to see the youngster doing so well.
“When I was at Manchester City, I went on loan to Shrewsbury under Harry Gregg and it’s a great little club to play for,” said Corrigan.
“My wife comes from Shrewsbury, my in-laws still live there and at the little pub I go to, the Cock Inn, they’re fanatical Shrewsbury supporters. Every time I go there I get my ear bent about what a good goalkeeper he is. I’m pleased for him and, touch wood, it’ll keep going for him.
“He’s progressed beyond belief this season. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s confident and we wanted him to go out and learn because that’s the only way you’ll learn your trade, by playing, and where it means something.”
Meanwhile, captain Ben Davies has urged his Town team-mates to rectify their awayday blues in Saturday’s big top-of-the-table clash at Brentford.
Davies admits Town’s League Two form on the road is starting to cause some concern but wants them to put it right as they prepare to head for west London to take on second-placed Brentford, two points and two places above them.
While Town have won five of their six home league games this term, it’s been a different story on their travels with a modest return of six points from as many games, and just one away league win at Exeter in mid-August.
“We’ve not seemed to get into our stride away from home,” said midfielder Davies. “We’ve been very good at home but we’ve struggled to get going away.
“We’re looking into it and we’ve just got to keep going and will look to do better at Brentford.
“We’ve just got to go there, get our confidence back and try and get a win.”
Davies said losing 2-1 at Accrington on Tuesday night came as a big blow, with his seventh goal of the season, a fine free kick, no consolation as Town missed out on the chance to go top of the table.
“I would rather have won the game and not scored,” he said. “But we’ve got a lot to concentrate on now. We’ve all been different class at defending this season but the way we defended on Tuesday was not acceptable and we’re going to have to put it right.
“Everyone’s going to want to knock us off our stride. At Accrington all over the pitch we gave free kicks away.
“We got caught cold on the two goals and you can’t give two goals away in the first few minutes and expect to get anything out of the game.”
• Town, who host Barnet at the Prostar Stadium on Tuesday (7.45pm), feature in the FA Cup first round draw which will be made at 1pm on ITV1 on Sunday.
By Stuart Dunn