Gaffer looks ahead to game with the Sky Blues
Shrewsbury Town boss Paul Hurst has warned against complacency as Town welcome League One’s bottom side Coventry City to the Greenhous Meadow.Coventry have endured a difficult season to date, but Paul is adamant that it will be a tough test against a team that are fighting for their lives.
Town are on a six match winning run at home and whilst Paul accepts the run is good, it will mean nothing come 3pm on Saturday.
“It’s a good home record”, said Paul.
“If I’d have said that we’d be at this point when I came in you would have carted me away. It’s great that we’ve managed to do that, but when it comes to the game on Saturday it doesn’t mean anything.
“It’s just another game in our quest to try and stay in this league. I don’t really mind where we get the points. You want to try and be greedy and get them both home and away.
“You can look at the table in whichever way you like, but the reality is that it is still tight and that message has got to get over to the players.”
Coventry may sit bottom of League One, but they visit Wembley on 2nd April in the Checkatrade Trophy final and Paul knows that they will be up for the game.
“The other night they could quite easily have taken something from their game with Bury”, said Hurst.
“Coventry changed shape and had a lot more success in that game. Will they come and play that system against us? Maybe, but in that game they matched Bury up, so if they come to match us up it will be different.
“All the teams in this league haven’t got bad players. When a team is confident they can look quite a bit above the level, but when it’s the other way it can be a struggle. At the minute they are in a very precarious position, but they’ve produced some good performances to get to a Wembley final.
“Surely they will be desperate to do well on a personal level, if nothing else, to make sure they get a Wembley final appearance on their CV and a special moment when they do finally hang their boots up.”
Paul has been warning the players all week against complacency and has called on them to fight from minute one to minute ninety.
“You have to try and keep on at them”, Paul said.
“They probably get sick of hearing myself and Doigy going on about standards, but I changed a couple of things the other night and if anyone is off it on the weekend they won’t play the week after.
“I’ve stressed from day one that every single game matters and the other thing that we’ve stressed at times is that even if you are losing a game you keep going, because who’s to say it won’t come down to goal difference.
“We all hope we are more comfortable than that, but that is what it could come down too, so fight for every minute you are on that pitch and see what the outcome is.”