Boss Paul Simpson has called on his experienced players to lead from the front to keep Shrewsbury Town’s promotion dream alive ahead of Saturday’s trip to Aldershot.
Simpson is pleased right back Dean Holden is available to make a timely return from suspension at the Recreation Ground and revealed midfielder Paul Murray, who has struggled to hold down a place in the side since Christmas, is also pressing for a recall.
“We need some experience,” said Simpson, who expects to be without injured top scorer Dave Hibbert once again. “I personally don’t think the experienced players have led by example of late and I’ve not been particularly happy with it.
“The more leaders and experience we can get in there the better, and Paul Murray’s definitely knocking on the door.”
On the return of Holden to a back four missing the banned Shane Cansdell-Sherriff, sent off against leaders Rochdale last weekend, Simpson added: “Dean’s had a disrupted time from being our most consistent performer over the main part of the season.
“He’s had an injury and been suspended so I’ll be glad to get him back into it and it’s up to him to get straight back to the level of performance that he showed before that.”
Simpson has now urged his side to return to the top seven as quickly as possible after Town slipped out of the play-off spots for the first time this year, with Aldershot likely to include ex-Shrewsbury man Ben Herd at right back and striker Omer Riza among the subs.
“We’ve slipped out of the play-offs for the first time in a while and we don’t want to be out of them so we’ve got to do everything now,” said Simpson. “There are still games there for us to get ourselves involved.
“We’ve allowed it to get to a point where we need results now. There’s such disappointment around at the moment but last Saturday was only the second time this season we’ve lost two league games on the spin.
“We just got totally outplayed on Saturday and we’ve got to start again. We’ve got to pick ourselves up and we’re going to a really difficult place in Aldershot knowing if we can beat them it knocks them a little bit away from us.”
Simpson has limited strike options and, while he revealed Hibbert is not a definite non-starter this weekend, it’s more likely he will be available to return from his groin tear at home to Darlington the following Saturday.
“If he’s not fit we’re going to have to go with what we’ve got and really it’s about time somebody else jumped up and grabbed hold of the situation,” said Simpson, who doesn’t expect to enter the loan market for reinforcements.
“With Jamie Cureton coming in, we’ve probably gone as far as we can,” he added. “I had enquired about players at the end of last week when I knew Dave Hibbert was very doubtful, but the ones I’ve asked about are either going to a League One club or are not allowed to go out.”
That leaves Cureton, Aldershot old boy Jake Robinson (see page 79) and Kiwi Kris Bright battling it out for the right to lead the Town attack on Saturday.
“Kris has still got a part to play,” insisted Simpson. “He had a real bad week last week. He had issues at home from New Zealand that disrupted him, he didn’t have a good game for the reserves last Wednesday and I just felt I couldn’t go with him at the weekend.
“But this week’s a different one and if he has a decent week who knows what might happen on Saturday?”
By Stuart Dunn