Marcus Braddock takes a look back and forward at events at Montgomery Waters Meadow…
With Saturday's game coming on September 2nd, it’s time to look back at August 2017.
From the seven fixtures so far, Town have won five, drawn one and lost one to a team from the division above in the cup.
We’ve only dropped two points in the league and they were against a team that we seemed to have the beating of.
We’ve scored eight times in League One and have conceded just four in the league with the goals scored by five different goal scorers, all of which are forwards.
In the cup competitions, we’ve conceded four and scored four but sadly we’re no longer in the League Cup.
The most important stat is that we’re in second place after five unbeaten games.
What I particularly like about this season's team is the way they try to break opposing teams play up before they’ve got into our half.
When we do win the ball, we’re very quick to play a ball forward which I think must be hard to deal with.
We also look a very fit team, we’ve scored a couple of really late goals and that’s a sign that we’re still alert deep into the game.
Defensively we’ve been good enough, two clean sheets in five league games and we’ve only conceded more than one goal once.
We did of course concede twice in the cup against Coventry which highlighted one of the few negatives, we have shown a tendency to switch off a little when we’re looking quite dominant.
This would be much more of a problem if we weren’t winning games and playing well and I think it could be just having the confidence to keep pushing forward instead of holding on to what you have.
This has happened a couple of times and I can see why a team may want to keep what they have and not make themselves vulnerable by pushing forward and leaving space.
Fortunately, it’s an issue that Paul Hurst is more than aware of and he will know better than anyone how to sort it out.
This weekend, Shrewsbury Town Ladies won 4-2 in the F.A. Cup at home to Wolves Sporting Ladies with Charlotte Budd opening the scoring after just five minutes, Tania Prior getting one just before half time to make it 2-1. Nicola Durnall and Erin Taylor both scored excellent goals in the second half to ensure safe passage to the next round. Shrewsbury Juniors are next up for Alex Owens’ team.
The youth team played Wrexham at the weekend but despite dominating for large periods of the game, Wrexham ultimately proved more clinical on the day and won 0-3. Next weekend the youth team travel to the seaside to play Blackpool.
As has been mentioned already, the men first team recorded victories in the Football League Trophy and in League One, scoring six and conceding three.
There are a number of players that have stood out over those two games but I think Ben Godfrey had a very good debut against both Cov and Gills and Alex Rodman again made telling contributions at the weekend so they are my men of the match/week.
Last week we waved a fond farewell to Dan James and Ryan McGivern who both left the club. We also said goodbye for now to AJ Leitch-Smith who has joined Dundee on-loan until January and to Zak Jules who has gone on loan to Chesterfield.
This week sees the men’s first team take on Wigan in what is now a top five clash. It’s likely to be our toughest test so far and one we will have to be at best for.
COYB!