Matt Taylor chatted to the media ahead of our League One clash at Carlisle - with the boss holding his press conference while also visiting our exercise on referral programme.
Ran by the Shrewsbury Town Foundation, our exercise on referral project is a 12-week fitness programme that is free to access for people who want to improve their physical or mental health.
Matt attended a session today where he met participants and coaches.
And the boss was also quizzed by the media on a host of issues - with our head coach revealling he expects tomorrow's deadline day to be busy. He also confirmed Jordan Shipley is set to miss the next three months with the knee injury he sustained at Fleetwood.
On attending the exercise and referral scheme:
“It’s brilliant to be here. The people who attend have all had medical issues and I think it’s important the club helps out in the community and is seen in a positive light.
“You can hear behind me everyone is enjoying it.
“Exercise is a massive part of life. It’s been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember.
“I think this scheme is a fantastic initiative and it’s great to be able to come down here and meet some wonderful people.
“This is a referral scheme through the NHS which I think will really help local doctors surgeries.
“I don’t know about this area specifically, but where I live it’s very hard to get a doctor’s appointment.
“If this can help alleviate in any way, shape or form the stress that’s put on the NHS – whilst also making people healthier - I think it’s a win-win situation.”
On the benefits of exercising:
“It’s all about endorphins when you exercise. I still know how much I hate it but it’s afterwards you feel the benefit.
“It just makes you happier, especially when it comes to your mental health.
“I know, speaking personally, it makes me feel a lot better when I exercise.”
On deadline day:
“I’m expecting it to be an extremely busy 24 hours.
“By the time we get to 11pm tomorrow night, I’m sure there will have been some activity and some changes at the football club.
“What that will be and who they will be I don’t know as of yet.
“But what I do know is it’s going to be a crazy 24 hours.”
On comments last week saying we’re after another forward:
“I think that’s changed slightly because when we had that conversation we were assuming Jordan (Shipley) was going to be okay.
“That’s probably changed our recruitment strategy.
“Jordan has had a scan and it is not as bad as first thought.
"That is good news but he will still be out for a substantial period of time which – at the moment – looks around three months.
“But of course, we will be pushing as hard as we can to shorten that time.
“That’s a real positive. We feared the worst. But he doesn’t have to have an operation.
“He is still on crutches and he will be a huge loss for us because he is a big part of what we want to do this season and he is a very, very, good footballer.
“But we will see him again this season and what it has done is give Mal (Benning) an opportunity to cement a place in the team.
“But it has changed our recruitment strategy.”
On signing a direct replacement for Jordan:
"If there is a viable option we will look at it.
“George Nurse has got injured. Now Jordan Shipley has got injured so, as it stands at the moment, we only have one left wing-back in the building.
“We might have to change that, we might have to look at it
"We've been having conversations since Sunday and things move very quickly.
"We are hopeful to have another one in the building, but just because it is close to the end of the window, we are not just going to sign anyone.
"We need to sign players that will impact on our starting XI.
“We have got good numbers in the group. Of course, I would like more, every manager and every head coach would.
“But what we don’t want to do is make the wrong decision. We want to make sure we do all our due diligence, and we bring in the right person and the right type of footballer.”
On his relationship with Micky Moore:
“I spent most of the day yesterday on the phone to Mick. It’s constant.
“Micky has been at the training ground on Monday and Tuesday this week and he’s at the training ground now.
“We have been sat in meetings at the end of training today with all the staff.
“It’s an ongoing process, I think what I like about the way things work here is the transparency.
“The conversations we have are very open and very honest and we always make sure decisions are made with the group in mind.
“Micky and I will be speaking a lot today and tomorrow. He is the one that is at the forefront of it.
“He is the one speaking to agents, he is the one speaking to clubs. He has the difficult job.
“It’s a lot easier for me, I’ll just say ‘I really like that player is it possible to do something there.’
“He has a very tough job, especially towards the end of the transfer window.
“If you look at us as a club, we were having these conversations seven days ago and now the outlook is completely different.
“Unfortunately, something happened with Jordan in the Fleetwood game so you have to be adaptable.
‘That is what we are. But one thing I know we do very well at this football club is communicate.
“Decisions are never made on a whim. There is always thought behind it.”
On when he'll travel to Carlisle:
"I would have thought I'll travel up tomorrow but whether I'm on the team bus or not on the team bus as of yet I don't know.
"It might be a busy day but I'm looking forward to it.
"I have to say again that the chairman has been brilliant because he's made funds available.
"We weren't sure whether we were going to need them but unfortunately we sustained an injury at the weekend and it makes us look different as a squad so we need to make sure we rectify that."
On his first Shrewsbury transfer window so far:
"It's been hectic. There has been a lot of time, energy and effort that has gone into it from all of the staff - that's the coaching staff and Micky and Tom (Ware, head of recruitment).
"Did we get every target we wanted? No. Am I happy with the players we've signed? Yeah, I really am and I think what you'll see from now until the transfer window opens again is a real cohesion with the new players coming into the team.
"Everyone, in terms of staff, is still trying to work out how each other works but what I will say with the players is that the new ones have all integrated into the group really well.
"I've been really impressed with their attitudes towards each other because you have to understand that as footballers, you are in competition with each other. The players have understood that and they've been respectful about that.
"We've got some players who haven't had as many minutes as they would have wanted yet so understandably they are frustrated, but on the whole, I've been really impressed with how the squad has reacted and how the squad has taken shape."
On Carlisle:
"It'll be a tough game. They haven't picked up a huge amount of points this season but I think what they've got in Paul (Simpson, Carlisle United's manager) is someone who has not only coached at first-team level but also in the England set-up, so I'm expecting it to be a really difficult game.
"The home crowd is really important to them, you saw that when they helped push them over the line at the end of last season.
"I'm expecting a tough affair in terms of attitudes and application. Our players will have to work for every single loose ball, they have to understand that Carlisle is an extremely difficult place to go and play football and this will be a fixture they will want a positive result from.
"We're coming off of a really good result against Fleetwood. The challenge to the players is to go and perform. We got the result last weekend but we probably didn't get to the level of performance that we wanted.
"My challenge has been to them to get a performance to give ourselves a chance at getting a result.
"It's going to be an extremely tough game, but one I'm looking forward to.
"We'll travel up today, spend the night in the hotel and prepare properly."
