Town manager Gary Peters this morning confirmed that he had signed defender Colin Murdock to the club on a years contract.

Murdock has been in trial with Town over the pre-season and has featured in all of the games so far. He's impressed GP over that period and has now done enough to earn a contract with Town.

The Northern Ireland international started his career with Man United before a certain Gary Peters took him to Preston North End. He went on to make nearly 200 appearances for Preston before spells with Hibs, Crewe and then Rotherham.

GP revealed the news to ShrewsWeb this morning and was happy to have finally got Colin to sign: "I don't think it's any surprise to anyone to here that we've signed Colin Murdock to the club.

"He's a Northern Ireland international who will be 32 years of age this month and I know him very well.

"I signed when he was about 22 for Preston from Man United and he's played at higher level ever since.

"He's got good experience, good size, good in the air and is left footed which gives you that bit of balance. He's also got a bit of pace and can use his experience to see things and is good at marking people.

"At the moment we've only got Kelvin Langmead and Darren Kempson as centre-backs and if one of those got inured we would really be struggling.

"It might be a couple of months before Luke Jones comes back and with Danny Hall playing so well in midfield it gives us enough cover in the central defensive areas."

The defensive area now seems to have cover in all positions and the form of Danny Hall also had bearing on the decision. Hall has pushed into the centre of midfield and this form left GP thinking he needed more cover in defence: "Before signing Colin I thought we had enough cover as we just had to get through to until Luke Jones gets back from injury, which might be a while.

"I thought I had Danny Hall for defensive cover but Danny is doing so well in midfield he is really making that position his own and it would be difficult to move him from there.

"Last season was probably unfair to Danny as he never played in the same position twice, and he needs to have at the chance for settled position.

"With David Hunt not being available for the start of the season then Danny has a chance to really push on there.

"That will mean we have good cover in midfield with Drums, Danny and Dave Hunt, when we play Neil Ashton in there he looks a difference class."

To finish with we asked GP for the latest on keeper Ryan Esson. The Scottish stopper has been linked with a number of clubs after GP revealed he would allow the keeper to leave the club: "We haven't got any news on that but I believe that a number of clubs are interested in taking on Ryan.

"That's up to him and his agent to sort out and if they want to go we will allow him to go as he needs to be playing football.

"At the moment he is here and he is giving us a really strong look in the goalkeeper area.

"We now have Glynn Garner being pushed by Ryan and Chris Mackenzie and if Ryan doesn't go it means we are really strong in that area."