Shrewsbury Town boss Steve Cotterill spoke to the press ahead of Town’s game at home to Rotherham United tomorrow night.
Table-topping Rotherham travel to Shropshire off the back of a good win away at Plymouth Argyle at the weekend and they currently boast a nine-point lead over second-place Wigan Athletic.
Town also picked up a convincing win away from home in their last fixture, beating Burton Albion by two goals to nil at the Pirelli Stadium.
Cotterill gave his thoughts on the upcoming game and praised Tom Flanagan and Matthew Pennington for their recent performances.
On the game:
“Everybody’s in good form, obviously when you win and you don’t pick up any knocks, everybody’s fresh. When you win it just makes for a completely different atmosphere, everybody’s happy and we haven’t picked up anything at the weekend. Maybe a few tired legs but other than that, I think everybody will be good to go again by tomorrow night.
“I watched a couple of [Rotherham] games yesterday. Obviously, when you’re leading up to other games you don’t get to see too much of the other teams you’re going to play but they’re obviously a good team, they work really hard for each other, they’ve got some good players and I think if you go back through some of my interviews, I wouldn’t have looked too far past Rotherham for promotion. They’ve got a good, strong squad of lads who are used to playing in the Championship and when they came down, they kept that Championship knowledge about them.
“When they step up a level, they know they’re up against it and when they get relegated, the Chairman doesn’t panic; he sticks with it and thinks that they’re strong enough to go back up.”
On Tom Flanagan:
“[He’s been] great! I think he’s been a good signing and he’ll continue to be a good signing for us. We’re delighted with how he’s played and we’re looking for more good performances out of him and I’m sure he’s looking to do the same. I think he’s settled in really well, he’s very versatile across that back four. It’s unbelievable that he can play from right-back to left-back all the way across and I think he would be equally as good. He’s very calm on the ball, a good defender, a good size and he loves his football as well – that’s the interesting thing; you can have a conversation with him about football and he’ll know about other teams and I always like it when a player likes his football.”
On Matt Pennington making the EFL League One Team of the Week:
“I looked at that and I thought Elliott Bennett was in there as well so I don’t know why that changed. It’s always pleasing when we get one in there but to have two would’ve been better and I’m not sure why Benno hasn’t made it in but yeah, obviously if Matthew has made it then we’re all delighted for him. I’m sure that goal he stole off of Nursey [George Nurse] will have helped him get the points he needed to get into the Team of the Week so yeah, we’ve had a good laugh about that in the dressing room today.”
