Josh Vela targeting Shrewsbury top half push

Town reached the 50-point mark thanks to Saturday’s 0-0 draw at Gillingham, where Steve Cotterill’s men impressed in an encouraging display.

Shrewsbury, in 17th, have eight games remaining, beginning at Oxford tomorrow evening, and are seven points off 12th. They have games in hand over every rival between themselves and the top half.

And midfield star Vela, one of Town’s brightest performers in Kent, insists that Salop want to finish the campaign with a flurry having steered themselves well clear of the drop since Cotterill’s appointment.

“From where we was, it’s obviously a great achievement to get to 50 points,” said Vela. “We’d like more, but over the eight games remaining hopefully we can get a few wins and push into the top half of the table, where really we should be.

“They (Gillingham) are in the top half and I’d say we’re a better team than Gillingham overall, so I reckon we should be in the top half and we’ll look to get there by the end of the season.”

Vela added: “One hundred per cent we need to be in the top half. There’s teams in the top half I don’t reckon are as good as us, but with the start we had, we had a big gap to fill, we’ve done well to get out of that.

“Hopefully we can push ourselves up in the remaining games and kick on for next season.”

Vela has been one of Shrewsbury’s most consistent performers of the campaign and a standout star since Cotterill’s appointment.

The midfield battler was near his best at Priesfield, winning 50-50s in midfield and setting the tone for the visitors, who enjoyed several decent chances in an entertaining goalless draw.

The ex-Bolton star reckons four wins and a couple of draws from eight could see Salop push close to 12th and above.

“We’ve got the players, but the start we had gave us a mountain to climb, however we clawed out of that comfortably,” Vela added. “We can go toe-to-toe with big teams, we’ve got to learn to get past teams below us that sit back and frustrate us.

“It seems like forever, doesn’t it, that we’ve been 17th? We win, draw or lose and don’t move, it’s frustrating but we know with the players we’re miles better than 17th. If we can win four of the eight and get a couple of draws I reckon we can be top half.”

Stand-in boss Aaron Wilbraham said of the display: “It was every player (for us), I don’t think there was one player that we had to carry, sometimes it happens when players have a bad day.

“But everyone was backing each other up, it was typified by Matthew Pennington’s header where he got flattened, such a good defensive header, willing to put his body on the line, everyone did that from start to finish.

“We prepared them well, some teams go there and can turn up dopey and get chinned, as the gaffer calls it, the boys knew their jobs from start to finish.”