Gaffer looks ahead to home pre-season friendly
Shrewsbury Town boss John Askey admits that he is looking forward to his first home game at the Montgomery Waters Meadow on Saturday.
Town take on Brentford at 3pm with home fans able to get their first look at Askey’s new look squad.
“It’s our first game at home, so it gives our supporters chance to have a look at the team, which is pretty much a completely changed team from what they ended the season with”, John said.
“Brentford will be a tough opposition. They are a good team, well organised, good footballers, but it’s what we need. The games pre-season weren’t chosen to be easy and so far the players have done well.
“I will be a bit nervous even though it is only a friendly, but I’m looking forward to it and hopefully we can put on a good performance, and we can show the supporters what we can do.”
John will be looking for an improvement from the performance against Burnley, where he wasn’t 100% happy despite the 1-0 win.
“It’s all about the performance”, Askey said.
“I’m not too worried about the results pre-season, I think if you get the performances right then results come. You want the players to be going into the start of the season confident, knowing that they have been doing well.
“I’ve re-watched the game (against Burnley) and I was probably a little bit over critical, we did better than I thought at the time, but there were times when we could have passed the ball a bit better and worked a bit harder than I thought we did.”
With the season now just two weeks away, Askey will use this game as a way of learning more about his side.
“I’ve got a good idea of what I want, but things can change”, John continued.
“All of a sudden a player can jump out at you and it can change things, so you’ve got to be flexible, but the main thing is getting systems to suit players.”