Gaffer looks ahead to the trip to the Memorial Ground
Shrewsbury Town Boss Paul Hurst is hoping that his squad can rekindle their best form when they take on Bristol Rovers on Saturday.Town were beaten 2-0 by Bolton last time out, whilst Bristol Rovers are still in with a slight chance of making the play-offs.
After last weekend’s defeat to Bolton, Paul and his staff have looked to keep training as upbeat as possible in an attempt to keep spirits high.
“It’s something that we thought about straight after the game on Saturday”, Paul told ShrewsWeb.
“There’s an element of trying to keep things sharp and not drag the life out of it. I know that there’s sometimes a question of if we lose do we work harder or if we win do we work harder?
“I don’t think I will ever be shy of asking the team to work, but we want to keep spirits up because if we go into Saturday and the remaining games feeling sorry for ourselves, feeling down, then there’s only one way it will turn out.
“It’s about keeping people’s spirits up, getting them running around and looking forward to the next game. The players know the situation we are in, but overall it’s about maintaining a good feel around the group.”
Town are looking to get back to winning ways after a four match run without a victory, but Paul is adamant that hard work will go a long way when it comes to finding results.
“We perhaps need a little bit of luck”, said Hurst.
“We need to cut out individual mistakes and other than that we need to work extremely hard. Prior to the Bolton game we looked at some stats which reflect when we have done well and how hard we’ve worked and they go hand in hand.
“If we can do that then it will take a good team to beat us and if that happens then sometimes you have to hold your hand up and say that they were very good.
“To a degree Bolton were very good at what they do. I’m not trying to say they absolutely played us off the park because we contributed ourselves by making a wrong decision, but its key moments in games that we need to come out on the right side of.”
Paul has made changes to the side in recent weeks and he is looking for some of his players to rekindle their best form.
“We are at a stage of the season now where you are going to have some tired legs out there”, acknowledged Paul.
“When we have looked at it we have tried to get a balance of people out there who are ready to go, but we are moving into April now with just a month to go.
“It would be brilliant if we could say ‘That’s the eleven, you are all going to be as fresh as anything, you are all going to be on top form’, but I think realistically there are going to be some changes as we move forward.
“You just want certain players to get that little bit of a spark back for the remaining games and that can then lift the team. And it would be great if those lads could find it in them to find that form that I know is in them.”