Gaffer's thoughts ahead of the home game with Fleetwood
Shrewsbury Town Manager Paul Hurst has called on his players to give everything to the cause in order to avoid relegation.The call comes ahead of Monday’s clash with Fleetwood Town, the fourth time the two clubs will have met in recent months.
Town lost 2-1 against Rochdale last time out and Paul is still disappointed by the decision to award Rochdale their second goal.
“When I watched it back on Sky Sports they were talking about whether it had been kicked out of Jayson's hands and I think it was, but it is also about how blatantly offside he was and I think that's been missed in some quarters,” Paul told ShrewsWeb.
“We can't do anything about. I made my feelings known on the night and the pictures speak for themselves. It's not one of those where you can have 50% saying one thing and 50% saying another. It is there for everyone to see.
“People talk about things being evening up and hopefully it is and we are due a bit of luck. At the same time we have to help ourselves as well and take what's been a decent start since I've been here into the second half of the season and if we can do that then we'll certainly have a chance of staying in the division.”
With over half the season now gone Town remain in the relegation zone, but Hurst is determined not to have a relegation on his CV.
“There has to be an element of pride in your job, said Hurst.
“I don’t want to have a relegation on my CV and I hope the players don’t want to either, but the most important thing is that as a group we have that thought process and every time we go onto the pitch we give absolutely everything to the cause.
“We can’t think ‘we might be alright next week’. The position we are in it really matters because if we just think we will wait for that next game then it might be too late.
“Realistically, we’ve been in all the games against some very good teams with good home form. Our away run has been tough fixture wise, but we can look at it in a way that we have got that out of the way and just look forward to the remaining games.”
Meanwhile, Paul announced that Town had a number of injury and illness concerns before Monday’s game, but Joe Riley will be available after being left out for tactical reasons last time out.
“We’ve got some injury concerns,” admitted Paul.
“I’m not going to divulge who they are, but we’ve certainly got some worries. There’s an illness as well in the camp, so it will the day of the game before the final decisions are made on the starting line-up.”