John Askey demands a positive response from his Shrewsbury Town team

Askey was critical of his side’s second-half performance in Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at Scunthorpe, a first loss in five games.

The Salop chief had strongly believed his team’s performances were on the up after some impressive recent displays but a disastrous 15 minutes allowed Scunthorpe to seal the points.

He said players need to look at themselves and question whether their effort and work-rate was at the desired level. “As a player you’ve got to look at it individually and ask ‘did you do enough?’” Askey said.

“I’m sure they all do that and it’s up for me to analyse it and see what we can do better, whether it’s that we need to work on stuff in training or not.

“But again we played well in spells.”

Askey has bemoaned his players not putting in performances for 90 minutes of games this season.

After edging the first half against Scunthorpe, Town were well under the cosh in the second period and were grateful for goalkeeper Joel Coleman as the deficit remained just one.

The boss suggested that a ‘lack of willingness’ is something he has to look at in training at Sundorne Castle this week.

Askey’s side have won just once in nine League One games so far this term and remain out of the relegation positions on goal difference. Shrews entertain a Gillingham side sitting one place below them on Saturday.

“If people haven’t got ability then they haven’t got ability – but we’ve got players who have,” said Askey.

“If somebody isn’t running around and putting their foot in, that’s not about ability, skill or technique, it’s a lack of willingness to do it.

“For a manager that’s not good enough. It’s obviously something as a manager I’ve got to look at.

“We need people who are going to compete for 90 minutes.”

Defender Luke Waterfall, the centre-half Askey brought in this summer from Lincoln City, says the players will take heart from the spells they out-played their hosts.

“We always look at positives and negatives,” said Waterfall.

“There’s always positives to take from games. The first half is definitely positive, we could’ve had one or two chances.

“We need to learn from the early part of the second half and we’ll definitely work on that this week to hopefully put it right next weekend.”