Paul Simpson has urged his Shrewsbury Town side to discover a much-needed ruthless streak to cut the gap between themselves and the League Two promotion chasers.
Boss Simpson has stressed the importance of his team putting together a run of wins to boost their current position of ninth, and wants Town to start by collecting three points from Saturday’s home date with struggling Grimsby.
Shrewsbury follow up the clash with the second-bottom Mariners with three away games in four over a testing festive season schedule, with a Boxing Day meeting at home to Macclesfield sandwiched by tricky trips to leaders Rochdale, Bradford and Chesterfield.
“We’re at home on Saturday and we’ve got to get winning games and get on a run again,” said Simpson. “We’ve had too many draws and we’ve thrown points away.
“If I just look recently, we threw three away at Darlington, there were two points dropped at Notts County with their late goal and we threw a point away at Bournemouth last weekend with another late goal. Those six points would have made a big difference and it’s disappointing.
“We’ve got to get a ruthless streak to us and if we perform like we did against Rotherham and Bournemouth in our last two games, then I would like to think three points will follow and it will set us up.”
Town have fallen 11 points behind leaders Rochdale, 10 adrift of Bournemouth and trail Rotherham in third by six points, but Simpson insisted he was not concerned at that sort of gap opening up at this stage of the campaign.
“There’s a hell of a lot of football still to be played,” he confirmed. “The big thing for us if we’re going to be involved is we’ve got to get a consistent run going and so far we haven’t done that, but I’m hoping our time will come.”
Despite his side’s inconsistency, Simpson has been pleased with some things in recent weeks, notably the impressive return to action of fit-again Terry Dunfield, the midfielder showing the form which convinced the boss to sign him from Macclesfield.
“I’ve been delighted with Terry,” he said. “He’s been absolutely fantastic after having a real tough time. I know the public opinion was that we had signed a bit of a duffer but I knew all along he was a good footballer.
“He probably didn’t do himself any favours last year because he didn’t move down properly and was spending a lot of time in his car which doesn’t help anybody.
“But he now lives in the area, he’s settled and he’s a good pro. I think his performances have been excellent.”
Dave Hibbert will again have to sit out Saturday’s visit of Grimsby owing to a hamstring problem, with transfer-listed Nathan Elder once more in the frame to replace him.
Simpson praised Elder’s workrate at Bournemouth, but revealed neither he nor Kris Bright had attracted much interest from other clubs since being transfer listed last month. “Before the loan window closed, there were a couple of enquiries for Nathan Elder from Conference clubs but they couldn’t do anything on the wages.
“His attitude has been first class to be honest and I thought he worked his socks off last Saturday. There are obviously areas he needs to improve on technically, but he’s a big, strong lad and a run in the side is probably what he needs.
“If he can get himself a goal to go with that physical strength then he could get himself a run.”
Midfielder Craig Disley and winger Lewis Neal are due to step up their comebacks next week by playing in a behind closed doors match at Blackburn Rovers. There is even an outside chance Disley could make the squad for Saturday.
By Stuart Dunn
