Payne looks ahead to Oldham trophy tie
Shrewsbury Town’s Top Scorer Stefan Payne is hopeful that Town will be able to progress to the semi-finals of the Checkatrade Trophy when they take on Oldham Athletic tonight.
Town are just two games away from the Wembley showpiece and potentially a first appearance at the national stadium for Payne.
“The motivation now is to get to Wembley”, said Stefan.
“We’ve got two games to get through and obviously we’ve got to win both games and then hopefully we get a nice final at Wembley. I’ve never played at Wembley before, so it will be a great opportunity for me to get there.
“A lot of managers look at it and think it’s an extra couple of games onto your fixture list that you don’t need if you are challenging in the league, but when you get to this stage it gets exciting because you are only two games from Wembley.”
Oldham dropped into the League One relegation zone on Saturday after a 3-0 defeat to Portsmouth, but Stefan isn’t expecting an easy game by any stretch of the imagination.
“I think everyone’s difficult at this stage, you are in the quarter-finals”,
“These kind of cup fixtures do help with league form, so if they get a win tomorrow then they can build from that, but hopefully we can beat them and keep going.
“I believe that if we go into the game with the right attitude and application then we can get the job done. In the changing room you’ve got to get yourself up for the game because the crowd’s quite low, but the motivation is to get to Wembley.”
Payne has been in and out of the team in recent weeks, but he is hopeful of getting a chance tonight to get some minutes under his belt.
“It’s good for some of us that haven’t been playing as much as we would like to get games”, Stefan continued.
“I think we are at stage now where everyone knows what everyone can do, so we don’t really need to prove a point, but it’s about getting more minutes in the legs and get ready for if you are called upon.”