Olly Lancashire primed for another battle for Shrewsbury Town

There won't quite be the roar of Bramall Lane's Kop end to spur Shrewsbury when they head north west tonight,

Instead, after almost silencing Sheffield United's fantastic near-22,000 crowd, Salop are likely to pitch up in front of little more than 3,000.

But Lancashire can draw on fond memories of former club Rochdale's dramatic 2013/14 campaign, when the Dale went up alongside play-off winning Fleetwood.

"Even if they do have a smaller ground, they have a big budget for their size so they're by no means a small club," said Lancashire. "They've got good players and have shown that in the last couple of years.

"It's an amazing story. You have to take your hat off to the chairman and people behind the scenes about what they've done in the last 10 or so years, but tomorrow's one game.

"My memories of Fleetwood are getting promoted with Rochdale. We went up and had a few battles.

"It's a smaller ground that Bramall Lane but the same size football pitch and we've got to do a job.

"I think they were both 0-0s which sounds boring but at the time they were big games and I remember playing against Sarc (Antoni Sarcevic) who was with Fleetwood at the time. They were some good battles."

Lancashire has not always been first-choice for Town this season, but has caught the eye at times while replacing Ryan McGivern – who has been on three international trips with Northern Ireland.

The 27-year-old, a product of Southampton's academy system, has featured in three of Paul Hurst's five Shrewsbury matches. Lancashire helped secure clean sheets against Middlesbrough under-23s before a shut out against Oxford United in the league.

"It's been up and down really.," he admitted. "I don't think anybody's really hit the form that we expected individually and collectively.

"We're looking at ourselves and hoping to do more.

"I was surprised (by the form). We were looking around pre-season thinking that we can have a good go this year, the lads that came in have had good careers and performed well.

"It was strange to see but hopefully things can click and we can start pushing up the table.

"But these are the sort of games where we need to start picking up points. They've been up and down this year with good and bad results.

"Hopefully we can go and perform for our best."

Lancashire is sure that, in little over a month, the Town boss will be looking to make changes as the January transfer window opens.

Hurst has already admitted that he will look to put more of his stamp on the squad he inherited from Micky Mellon

"I'm sure the gaffer will be looking to change things in January," he added.

"That's only natural. I've said we've got a good squad but we need to start showing that – which we have done in recent weeks. This league's all about consistency and hopefully we can get that.

"The clean sheets and the wins have helped. Last Saturday didn't go to plan but hopefully we can build on the last month and kick on."