Paul Simpson has challenged his Shrewsbury Town players to get back on track and rediscover their consistency levels at home to troubled Luton on Saturday.
Boss Simpson, aware of the high expectations surrounding the club, is concerned that Town have been slow out of the blocks in recent games, a point reinforced by Tuesday’s 2-2 draw against Barnet when they had to retrieve a two-goal deficit.
Now he’s looking for an improvement as Town chase their first victory in four matches at the expense of Mick Harford’s League Two basement boys, who were deducted 30 points at the start of the season.
“When we play at home, we will be expected to go out and perform, and we have to,” said Simpson. “It’s a responsibility, it’s not a burden, but it’s a tag we’ve got to be prepared to deal with.
“I don’t think we dealt with it very well against Barnet and too many times this season we’re saying we’re disappointed with how we’ve started games.
“We need to start properly against Luton, the first 10, 15 minutes are important, and then we’ve got to go on and be as ruthless as we’ve been in other games this season.
“We’re going through a little bit of a patch at the moment where we’re not being consistent enough over the 90 minutes and it’s costing us. The sooner we get it out of our system the better.”
Simpson will have to make at least one change on Saturday as midfielder Shane Cansdell-Sherriff serves a one-match ban, and he has not ruled out further changes to produce a winning formula.
“It’s something I’ll look at,” he said. “I think the majority of the players are performing to the levels we know they can.
“Whether somebody else needs to come out and have a little break, I don’t know. We’ve got quite a few players who are on four bookings in Kevin McIntyre, Mike Jackson and Ben Herd, and maybe that’s playing on people’s minds a little bit.
“We might just have to have a look at that and see whether we can help and deal with it in a different way.”
Luton head for the Prostar 20 points adrift of safety owing to their big points deduction as a result of the Kenilworth Road club’s well documented financial problems.
They are likely to include Asa Hall, the midfielder who spent the last four months of last season on loan to Shrewsbury before opting to look elsewhere and sign for the Hatters.
“If you look at the goals he’s scored, he’s obviously going to be a threat,” said Simpson. “We’ve got to make sure that it’s not his day on Saturday. I’m sure he’ll come back and will want to show what we lost out on. It’s not a case that he was a player I didn’t want. I did want him but circumstances changed that and he didn’t come.
“We can’t really afford to spend too much time worrying about Luton. We’ve got enough things on our own plate to make sure we get it right.”
Simpson added any further additions to his squad were unlikely until players start to head in the other direction.
“It doesn’t look likely that somebody will be in in the near future,” he confirmed. “We’re still in a situation where we have a squad which is too big. Players are choosing to not go out on loan which we have to respect. I think before anything happens we need players to be moving.”
Simpson’s biggest plus this week has been the return to senior duty of experienced midfielder Paul Murray, who played the second half on Tuesday, his first involvement with the first team since mid-August after recovering from an Achilles injury.
“He just needs games now,” said Simpson. “I felt we needed to get him into it against Barnet and he’ll get stronger and fitter with games. The big thing for us is keeping him out on the pitch.”
Town have another home game on Tuesday (7pm) when they take on Dagenham & Redbridge in the Southern section quarter-finals of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy. There are reduced admission prices of £10 for adults and £5 concessions. Children will be free when accompanied by an adult (maximum two children per adult).
• See page 79 for more Town news.