Gaffer looks forward to facing high flying Scunny
Shrewsbury Town Manager Paul Hurst is looking forward to taking on high flying Scunthorpe United on Saturday.Scunthorpe currently sit 2nd in League One, but Hurst is hoping his side can continue their unbeaten run, which currently sits at 5 games.
“It’s a nice run we are on, but as I keep saying there is still a lot of hard work to be done”, Hurst told the Press.
“All I would say is that from when I first came in, where we would turn up to games really cautious about what was going to happen, we are slightly more optimistic going into games and feel like we are going to get certain aspects of the performance from the players.
“We are probably in the best place we have been realistically, but still with a large part of the season left. We’re nearly into the last third of the season and it’s still all to play for.”
Scunthorpe are unbeaten at home this season and in Josh Morris they have a man in form, with the midfielder scoring 19 goals so far this season. Hurst has been impressed with what he has seen from Graham Alexander’s men and would like his Town side to play in a similar way.
“From what I’ve seen and heard it seems to be about the team”, said Paul.
“Morris has obviously done exceptionally well and I’m sure had scored more goals than anyone could have imagined, but realistically it is about the team ethic and how hard they work.
“I watched them at Southend and they were still running hard, trying to make things happen, backing each other up and for me that’s where I’m sure their success to date comes from. They’ve got good players as well, but they are stronger because of their togetherness.
“Scunthorpe haven’t just got where they are on hard work, but if you are not having your best day individually, but collectively you are all at it still and working extremely hard, you will win games like that at times.
“It’s certainly what we are trying to build now. I think we’ve started to progress towards that as a team and when we are not at the best we still make it very difficult for the opposition and work hard for each other.”
Meanwhile, there was some better news for Stefan Payne with Paul Hurst hopeful that Payne would return in Shrewsbury colours at some point in the future.
“At the minute we are not 100% clear of what the injury is, but we are certainly hopeful that it’s not as bad as first feared”, said Hurst.
“He certainly won’t be available this weekend or Tuesday, but we are a bit more optimistic that he will be back in a Shrewsbury Town shirt.
“Certainly when we were talking about it after the game and on Monday we were very fearful that that would be it and we’d seen him for 12 minutes, so fingers crossed it will heal and we will see him back with us.”