Micky looking forward to the WBA game
Micky Mellon says tonight's pre-season friendly against Premier League West Bromwich Albion promises to be a tough test for his Shrewsbury Town side as they continue to work towards the League 2 opener at AFC Wimbledon next month.
The manager was encouraged by Saturday's performance and 2-0 win over Chesterfield but knows Albion will be a step up in class as Alan Irvine brings his Baggies side to the Greenhous Meadow (7.45pm).
Micky, a former Albion player in his own playing days, said it was a fixture to really look forward to.
"It will be a real tough test for us," said Micky. "I want the players to play with courage and go out there and test themselves against a team from that level and find out how far away you are, if you are, from the level of those players.
"We want to go out there and give a right good account of ourselves, go out there and be brave and cause them problems as well, make it difficult for them.
"It's going to be a game where we're asked a lot of questions. We're going to have to be good with the ball and aggressive without it so it will be a difficult test for us that will take us to the max.
"We'll be able to see again taking forward any work that we have to do to be right for that first game of the season."
Micky added there were plenty of positives about Town's performance against Chesterfield last weekend with goals from James Collins and trialist Craig Curran sealing victory in the opening friendly of pre-season.
"Considering the stage we're at in pre-season and it's a totally new group, we would have to say we were happy with what happened on Saturday.
"But we're still not going to get carried away as it's still very early days and we've still got a lot of work to do, but the exciting thing is we still think we can make it better again.
"We think there's lots of areas we can improve on and so do the players. With fitness levels we can also gain so it's all looking very positive."
Prices have been reduced for tonight's game with admission £10 for adults, £5 concessions, £1 for juniors under-16s and £5 for disabled supporters while it's free for carers.