Accrington v Shrewsbury: Steve Cotterill happy with transfers – now it’s for points

Some fans expressed disappointment as Town were unable to add to their ranks on transfer deadline day.

But Cotterill pointed to work completed earlier in the summer, with nine players recruited in total, and a flexibility in the squad to cover most positions. He added he felt the squad is in a ‘far better place’, as well as smaller and younger that last season.

“I’m OK with it,” Cotterill, whose side travel to Accrington Stanley tomorrow, said of his business. “It seems as though everybody else potentially isn’t.

“We’ve got a strong enough squad, we’ve got enough flexibility with us. If I get somebody in now who hasn’t been with a club it takes six weeks to get them up to speed.

“To be honest with you I’m surprised that in every press conference there’s asking about players and this huge disappointment about it.

“If you look around at the clubs, we’d have brought in a lot more than most clubs, it was just that we had to let so many go, it ends up being ‘oh we haven’t got this or that one’.

“It has not been for the want of trying, the last week has been absolute murder.

“I think we have as much flexibility in our squad to fill most positions.

“The squad’s in a far better place than it was, this is why I don’t get all the furore about bringing in two or three others that ain’t going to make any difference, I don’t get it.

“What we want and get is two different things, we can’t always do it.”

Shrews head to Lancashire as they aim to build on last weekend’s first win of the league campaign against Gillingham, in which they came from behind for a 2-1 success.

John Coleman’s men started the season brightly with four wins from five in all competitions but head into the contest of the back of a first League One defeat – 2-0 at MK Dons – last weekend.

“They have (established themselves), very good,” Cotterill said. “The changes they’ve had to do to the stadium has been first-class, full credit for them, they’ve done very well.

“The ground is not quite like the old ground used to be. They’ve done very well on and off the pitch.”

Cotterill and Coleman go way back. The pair would lock horns in pre-season friendlies between Burnley and Accrington during his time in charge at Turf Moor. During the same period, Burnley’s reserve side would play at Stanley’s ground.

The Shrews chief said: “They play good football, to be fair, I knew him before when he was there and he came back.

“It obviously suits him and he suits them, which is why it’s a good marriage, really.

“He’s certainly earned the time he gets at that club, first-time around and then he’s gone back and done just as well second-time around.”

Town, who have David Davis and Harry Burgoyne, suspended, are assessing the fitness of forward Rekeil Pyke, who was forced off with a hip flexor problem in Tuesday’s EFL Trophy defeat.

It is not thought to be a serious problem for Pyke.