Shrewsbury Town

A look at how our players are getting on away from the club

It was a decent weekend for all of Town’s loan players as they picked up a win and a draw from their respective matches.

John McAtee and Dom Smith have now returned from their loan spells, so only Callum Roberts, Ryan Sears and Chris Gallagher were in action as AJ Leitch-Smith is on a winter break in the Scottish Premiership.

Callum Roberts enjoyed a perfect debut for Newtown as they beat Prestatyn 3-0 in the final game of the Welsh Premier League first phase. Roberts joined Ryan Sears at the Robins last week and both players helped keep a clean-sheet to make it back to back wins for Newtown after they had beaten Cardiff Met 3-2 on Tuesday night. On Saturday, Jamie Reed fired Newtown in front and then it was two former Shrewsbury Academy stars that added the goals as both Alex Fletcher and Joe Kenton found the back of the net. The Welsh Premier League will now move into Phase Two of the season with Newtown playing in the second-half of the division against Llandudno, Barry Town, Aberystwyth Town, Prestatyn Town and Carmarthen Town.

Elsewhere, Chris Gallagher performed well in Stalybridge Celtic’s 2-2 draw with Buxton. Celtic were 2-0 up at half-time thanks to goals from Liam Dickinson and Jordan Chapell and  they were still leading by that scoreline when Gallagher was substituted on 60 minutes, but that was where it went wrong for Stalybridge as they conceded twice in the final 30 minutes. The draw means that they are still chasing their first away win in the league for 64 weeks.