Dave Edwards: Chasing games is proving a huge problem for Shrewsbury Town
It’s been a crushing week for Shrewsbury after it looked like some strong building blocks were put in place.
I think it’s been a huge dose of reality that this is going to be a fight – definitely for the next month or six weeks until Town can pick up some results and start dragging themselves from the drop zone.
All of a sudden you’re well into the season and the table doesn’t lie, we’re a quarter of the way in. It is quite alarming.
It’s a shame they couldn’t build on those performances and the stand-out thing is falling behind in every game but one this season, that is quite a scary stat. It means as a team and staff there’s always a mountain to climb.
I’ve eluded to before how confidence affects football, you are left thinking ‘where is the next win coming from?’ – all of a sudden you’ll be seeing what every team is good at and not how you can beat them.
It’s difficult but something Town must overcome very quickly and go into games believing they can win.
I do think Town start games reasonably well, they did against Bolton on Saturday, but when that goal goes in it seems to suck the life out of them and takes a while to get going again
That was compounded with a second goal and the game is theoretically all-but lost.
They need to find a way to start games – not necessarily better – but more effectively. Whether that’s ways to get in behind teams, crosses in, more clear-cut chances, and then having the calmness. One of my favourite sayings in football was when Chris Coleman would say with Wales ‘have fire in your belly and ice in your veins’. Be up for the fight, but when the moment comes have that composure.
Josh Vela being out of Town’s team is massive. He was player of the year last year and has been among the best this year, we were always worried he would miss games through suspension or injury – and that nightmare reared its head. I really do think he’d have made the difference in those games.
Your central midfielders are the players who sense danger when you’re attacking.
A good holding midfielder – and I played alongside a brilliant one in Karl Henry at Wolves, who was an excellent passer – but his mindset when we attacked was ‘where is the danger?’
Shaun Whalley appears to be operating more on the right, alongside Luke Leahy in the middle – who has done brilliantly in recent weeks, arguably Town’s best player – but if you aren’t a natural central midfielder I don’t think you quite have the positional sense to understand that danger.
It does come from big voices behind organising. My natural instinct was always to go forward, but I was always told ‘always look for the danger’.
The imbalance in the squad is quite frightening. That’s why I think the results are a bit of a reality check. There’s no time to wait and Town need the results to get out of the bottom four as soon as possible.
I have no doubt in my mind that the manager, tactically, can do the job. He knows how to set up a team and get results, but you have to look at what he has at his disposal and I don’t think he has enough in that dressing room to consistently pick up results at the moment, which goes back to recruitment.
Town head to Ipswich this Saturday. If I was a player I’d prefer to play away at the moment, where there’s less pressure.
The Wycombe game last week in particular was real fine margins, it could’ve gone either way, Town will look at refereeing decisions they got done by. But they kept going and got back into it with an excellent Matty Pennington header.
Even at Bolton the players kept going. The manager’s definitely got the right characters in that dressing room, they are by no way throwing the towel in.
Town will always be in games because of that, they just need results to fall the right side of the line.
If they can get that first goal then I do believe they have enough to hold on to a lead. Hopefully they can do that, nick a goal and be resilient at Portman Road.
