Skipper talks ahead of the trip to Bradford
Shrewsbury Town Skipper Adam El-Abd admitted that Town can’t feel sorry for themselves ahead of this weekend’s trip to Bradford City.The Town squad were surprised by the news on Thursday that Micky Mellon would leave the club by mutual consent and Adam started by paying tribute to his former boss.
“It’s been a whirlwind day and the news has hit the dressing room hard really,” Adam told Shrews Web.
“We are all gutted to see Micky leave and Jacko as well. It’s not nice when it happens. We are all very disappointed that we weren’t able to get enough results for Micky and it’s a sad day really.
“Personally I really enjoyed working with him and I’m gutted really to not be able to have the opportunity to be able to continue doing that and see the job through, but I suppose that is football.
“It’s part and parcel of it and it’s now up to the dressing room to pull together and stick together and make sure we are as one, and hopefully we can pull through and come together and get a result on Saturday.”
Bradford currently sit second in League One and Adam is expecting a difficult game in West Yorkshire on Saturday, but is hoping to win it for Micky.
“Bradford will be tough, as is every game in this league,” said El-Abd.
“They are unbeaten. Big crowd. We are going there without a manager. You’d expect them to roll us over and for us to roll over and let them tickle our belly, but that won’t happen.
“We will make sure that we at least come out fighting and make sure we do our upmost to get the result for Micky and to show that we have got some character in that dressing room.”
The Egyptian international admitted that the results hadn’t been what the club had been hoping for, but was still surprised to see Micky leave.
“Obviously results haven’t been as we would have hoped for, but there’s been a lot of areas of the performance that have been good,” said Adam.
“The results haven’t quite mirrored that, but I think over the course of a season if you keep performing to a level, I think results eventually mirror performances.
“It’s taken us by surprise. We are all disappointed and gutted to see him go, but now is the time for the dressing room to show its character and all pull together and if we go into Saturday with that mentality, hopefully we will get the result.”
Skipper El-Abd was one of 14 new signings brought in by Micky Mellon over the summer and he believes that the squad still have what it takes to guide Shrewsbury up the table, despite Mellon’s departure
“There was revolving doors this summer for this football club, lots of us came in,” admitted the 32 year old.
“It was a new dressing room and we were optimistic and looking forward to what was to be, but that’s football. We’ve got to get on with it now.
“There’s no point crying into our pillow because there is a game on Saturday and there’s only 11 games gone in the season so far, so there’s a huge chunk to go and the season is by no means over and it’s definitely salvageable.
“If we cut out the individual errors and build on the positives I’m sure we can turn those draws into wins and the losses into draws and climb up the table.”