Ethan Ebanks-Landell eager to get Shrewsbury Town up the table

Town have spent the best part of four months – aside from a few days in 16th – in the same spot in League One, despite several good runs of form.

Supporters have joked Steve Cotterill’s men will be ‘17th forever’ but Town’s players understand the progress they have made under the new boss, as part of the overall process. Shrewsbury could climb a place by beating promotion-chasing Portsmouth at home tomorrow, a result which would further underline their resurgence and be a fifth match unbeaten. Shrews have taken 37 points from 21 games under Cotterill, having managed just nine from their opening 13 games under Sam Rickets.

“We just try to take it one game at a time, if we can keep getting wins then we’ll climb the table,” defender Ebanks-Landell said. “Hopefully we can move off that 17th spot that it seems like we’ve been stuck on forever! We’ll see how it goes.

“Every time my mum says ‘oh well – but you’re still 17th’ and I’m like ‘cheers mum, I know that!’

“Me and a few of other more experienced players have to try to take it a game at a time and understand that it is the process. We take it with a pinch of salt, it is what it is, there’s nothing we can do about it, we’ll control what we can control. That’s the aim, to finish up the table as high as possible, if we can continue this good run of form and believing in each other then we’ll be able to climb, hopefully.”

Shrewsbury still have three games in hand on rivals above them and know success in those could leap them up the standings. Last season’s 15th-placed effort, which was on an average points-per-game formula due to the pandemic, was a second-highest finish since 1990 for Town.

“As long as we don’t go down the way!” laughed Town coach David Longwell. “It is amazing though, but we still have games in hand, so if we win them then we could move up. The good thing is from the manager’s perspective is where they were when he came in and where they are now, that’s the most important thing, that we have at least climbed.

“But obviously we’ve been stuck in 17th, albeit from a few days, for quite a long period of time.

“All we can do is keep going out to try to climb the table if we can and win as many games as we can.

“The gaffer’s mentioned it a few times on the loudspeaker to them, saying ‘look you’d probably like to move up the table but it’s just the way it is at the moment’.

“I think it’s more about the feeling the players have and the feedback from us being happy with how they’re doing, unbeaten in the last four against good teams in tough games, that in itself has given us a good feeling.”