Salop boss Steve Cotterill spoke to the media this morning ahead of tomorrow’s game at home to Lincoln City.
Town head into the fixture off the back of a fantastic win away at Rotherham United last weekend - a convincing performance that backed up their biggest win of the season the previous Tuesday.
Lincoln are also in decent form and have picked up two clean sheets and four points from their last three games.
Cotterill discussed the game and Lincoln themselves before updating fans on the situation regarding the Shrewsbury players on international duty.
On Lincoln:
“I would imagine [it is a game between two sides who are feeling very good about themselves at the moment]. I think they’ve had a little bit of a turnaround in their form but they’re a good team anyway. What they’ve been through is the trials and tribulations that every one of us goes through during the season; they’ve had a few injuries this season that would’ve affected them and they have had a couple of games where they could’ve easily gone on and won the games but they haven’t and sometimes that happens. They had a great season last season but this season has been a bit indifferent for them. They’ve still got some very good players, a good manager – I like Michael and I like David Kerslake, his assistant, they’re great guys and we’re looking forward to seeing them tomorrow.”
On the preparation:
“We’ve gone over a few games this week, even back into the Oxford game, but it’s probably more about performance and how we’ve played and more of the same really. If we can replicate those performances we’ll win games, we’ll do that no matter who we’re playing, but we have to replicate those performances.”
On how achievable mid-table is:
“We don’t quite know. The reason we are where we are is that we haven’t been consistent throughout the season so it’s not like we’ve won 20 odd games all of a sudden. Every game in this league is a tough game to win and tomorrow will be no different against Lincoln just because Lincoln are down there. They’re a good team and always a dangerous opponent and tomorrow is a dangerous game for us because we’re above them in the league and everybody will expect that we’ll win this game; it doesn’t always work out like that. This one is going to be a tough game so we’ve got to be full-tilt tomorrow and ready and be prepared for the game which we will be.”
On Tom Flanagan and Aaron Pierre:
“I don’t tend to speak to them [when they’re on international duty]. All I need to know after the games – obviously Tom hasn’t played yet but Aaron has – is where their fitness is and if they’re okay. We know where Tom was [in terms of fitness] going into tonight’s game and we know Aaron Pierre is a bit stiff and sore but that may be down to an artificial pitch that he’s played on in Gibraltar.
“Aaron’s only playing the one game [for Grenada] and then he’s coming back. I know he’s a little bit stiff and a little bit sore and we haven’t seen him yet but we’ll just have to wait and see where he is for the weekend. Everybody else is okay.”
