Marcus Braddock looks ahead to the visit of Charlton Athletic
Shrewsbury Town go into this weekend’s game at home to Charlton after a busy week with games in two competitions and plenty going on off the pitch. You could almost be forgiven for forgetting about this weekend’s home game against 4th placed Charlton Athletic with so much happening. The Addicks have had a good season so far and look set for another play-off position finish but a closer look at their stats show that they need to win this weekend. The three clubs directly behind them have games in hand on the Addicks so a slip up is likely to let one of them in. Recent form has been pretty good apart from a couple of away defeats over the Christmas period and to be fair, those two games were against Coventry and Barnsley who have both been in decent form. Since then they've played at home twice drawing 1-1 with Sunderland last Saturday and beating Walsall 2-1 on New Years Day.
Top Scorers (cup goals in brackets)
Karlan Grant 12 (0)
Lyle Taylor 11 (3)
Joe Aribo 5 (0)
Assists (League One)
Lyle Taylor 6
Karlan Grant 4
Nicky Ajose 3
Tariqe Fosu-Henry 3
Clean Sheets
Five at home and 2 away. Charlton's last clean sheet was at home in the 1-0 home win to Gillingham and their last away clean sheet was from a 2-0 at Walsall in early November.
Stats
Charlton have only failed to score in one away game this season in League One and that was against Rochdale in Late October.
They have scored an average of 1.54 goals away from home and have conceded exactly the same amount, 1.54.
Both teams have scored in 77% of Charlton's away games this season, much higher than the league average of just over 50%.
Referee - Anthony Backhouse from Cumbria. Games this season: 25. Yellow cards: 70. Red cards: 4.
Assistant Referees: Barry Cropp and Chris Isherwood
Fourth Official: Mark Cunliffe
Squad News
We've seen a few players leave the club this week but none with any recent involvement with our first team so there should be any changes on that front. Returning hero Dave Edwards is in full training but Sam Ricketts has said that Edwards will only play if it suits the team.
Lenell John-Lewis received bad news this week about his injury from the Stoke game and will need an operation and a lengthy period of rehabilitation. He's not expected to play any further part in this seasons campaign and could be out as long as a year. Shaun Whalley is still suffering from a hamstring injury.
Charlton have no new injury worries but have signed goalkeeper Chris Maxwell on loan from Preston and Defender Ben Purrington on loan from Rotherham.
Summary
This game is as difficult to call as the play-off games last season and it could be a tight game again. However, the Addicks have two goalscorers in exceptional form this season and we're going to have to restrict their movement if we're to get anything from the game. Both Town and the Addicks have teams below them snapping at their heels so there is pressure on both teams and it's the team that copes the best with that pressure that's likely to prevail.
COYB!!!