Gaffer looks ahead to the trip to Oldham
Shrewsbury Town boss Paul Hurst believes Town will need to improve on Tuesday night's performance in order to beat Oldham.
Town beat Southend 1-0 in midweek, but Hurst admitted his side weren’t at their best in that game.
“It seems as if they are settling and the improvement is starting”, Hurst told the Press.
“I think they’ve got a nice mix. In (Nathan) Clarke, Craig Davies, (Anthony) Gerrard, they’ve got some real experience that have been there, done it and seen it all.
“In midfield with (Jack) Byrne, (Kean) Bryan and (Dan) Gardener, they’ve got very good footballers in the middle of the pitch who are really key for them and bringing someone like (Eoin) Doyle in is a big signing.
“He got the winner the other night and I think they will continue to improve. I fully expect a very tough game there and we will have to be better that we were on Tuesday evening to take something from the game.”
Whilst Town weren’t at their best at times on Tuesday night, Hurst was pleased with the character his side showed and believes that will be helpful this season.
“Second half we were obviously under-pressure, but first-half I thought we had a few opportunities”, Paul said.
“There’s no doubt we weren’t at our best and I think the Wigan game probably had an impact and that’s something I will look at when we have Blackburn and then Doncaster.
“You are going to get games where you aren’t at the best and overall I think we’ve only had two games out of eight or nine where we haven’t played as well as I would like.
“As you move into the Autumn/Winter months I think you get a lot of scrappy games in truth and then it is about having character and I think we have got good characters that will battle and fight, and hopefully we are capable of winning games in different ways.”
There also appeared to be some better news on the injury front with the Town gaffer confirming Stefan Payne’s injury doesn’t seem to be as bad as first feared.
“I think there’s a slight bit of soreness there, but he’s trained”, said Hurst.
“It’s certainly much better news than what was in his head. I was very non-committal on it because of what Chris (Skitt) had said and it’s looking like it is good news and it was more of a scare and nothing more.”