Shrewsbury Town boss Steve Cotterill spoke to the media ahead of Town’s game against Morecambe tomorrow night.
The fixture was originally scheduled to take place on Saturday 19th February but was postponed due to a waterlogged pitch.
Both sides suffered defeat at home on Saturday after Town lost narrowly to Oxford United and Morecambe went down by three goals to one at the hands of Cheltenham Town.
Cotterill looked ahead to the game, praised Ryan Bowman, and discussed Aaron Pierre and Tom Flanagan’s international call-ups.
On Morecambe:
“[There] probably won’t be too much difference [between Derek Adams’ Morecambe and Steve Robinson’s Morecambe] because Derek hasn’t been back there long. I think, even if they do change in styles or whatever, I’m sure the Morecambe lads can drop back into it so I’m sure it’s a pretty seamless swap really. Why wouldn’t he [Derek Adams] [have a good relationship with the players]? He ended up leaving for another job, and that happens, but now he’s back and it was a good fit in the first place so I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be a good fit for them going forward.”
On the game:
“It’s one we’re looking forward to because, after playing so well at the weekend and getting beaten, we want to get stuck back into another game so we’ll start focussing now on Morecambe which allows us to leave Oxford behind. [Training this morning was] the same as always, the boys are never the problem and they train properly and prepare properly for games.
“The day after a game – especially when you’ve got a quick turnaround – is busy for all the staff, we’ll all be looking at Morecambe and picking things out. The analysts – probably towards the end of last week when we finished our video stuff – would’ve already jumped onto Morecambe anyway so they’ll be ahead but obviously yeah for myself, yesterday was occupied with having a look at Morecambe’s game.”
On Ryan Bowman:
“I was pleased for him at the weekend because it’s been a while since he’s scored and you never know what that does to a striker's confidence but it was obviously a relief to him to score at the weekend. I said to him that I felt his performances, even leading up to the game on Saturday, have been very good and sometimes you have to work yourself in credit in this life to get your lucky breaks. I think, in the other two games, he’s deserved to score and he didn’t, but then at the weekend, he goes and gets one. The law of averages says that if you keep getting in there and getting the chances, you’re going to score in the end. It was a really good goal, not just Ryan’s finish but the build-up to it was first class.”
On Aaron Pierre and Tom Flanagan getting called up:
“Well, that’s what happens when you have international players so we can’t grumble about that. We need to wait and see because you never know if a game is going to go ahead because I think Lincoln have got international call-ups so the fixture [at home to Lincoln City on Saturday 26th March] could be off anyway. Aaron or Tom could be away on international duty while no one else has a game but we have a couple more games to prepare for before that but congratulations to the pair of them.”
