Matt Pennington: Shrewsbury Town are working on fixing poor starts

Town have all too often started slowly in games this season. They have shipped the first goal in 14 of 15 matches and are still awaiting a clean sheet ahead of a trip to Ipswich tomorrow.

Pennington, a former Tractor Boys loan man, has been a regular presence in the Shrews backline this term following a permanent summer switch from Everton.

The defender said: “Definitely, it’s something the gaffer has been trying to drill into us the last few weeks.

“It is massively important, we all know that, it is just trying to keep our concentration in those early stages.

“Sometimes, as well, people can have that bit of brilliance to score a goal, it’s just how you react to it.

“We need to be ready to react to things that might not go our way and make it a positive.

“Both aspects of the game, clean sheets and the goals, we do those as a team. We need to score more goals as a team and keep clean sheets as a team.”

Ipswich, who are down in 19th after recovering with two wins from four league games following a torrid start, won 6-0 in their last home match against struggling Doncaster.

Paul Cook’s men are without summer loan start Bersant Celina, who is away on international duty with Kosovo. No.1 Christian Walton, on loan from Brighton, is out injured, as are Hayden Coulson and Tom Carroll.

Loan striker Macauley Bonne has eight league goals.

Ex-Town stopper Toto Nsiala has played just one league game this season. Midfielder Jon Nolan is out of the first-team picture.