Ethan Ebanks-Landell reveals Shrewsbury Town's key tactical set-piece tweak

Ebanks-Landell, who was one of the hosts' top performers in the 1-0 victory over MK Dons, revealed Cotterill had instructed his side implement zonal marking from opposition set-pieces. Town worked on the new defensive set-up in training at Sundorne last week.

Defending dead balls has been an undoing for Town this season. The latest came at Ipswich last weekend when Macauley Bonne headed in the winner.

And skipper Ebanks-Landell believes the change to zonal from man-to-man marking paid dividends for Town as they finally recorded a welcome clean sheet.

Dons had no joy from 11 corners and a number of free-kicks around the Town box, though it is believed Liam Manning's visitors sent more set-pieces into the box at Shrewsbury, as opposed to playing short, as has been their style at times this term.

Ebanks-Landell revealed: “We’ve not been far off in games, nine times out of 10 at the minute it’s been set-pieces and we changed to zonal (marking) and I felt like it worked, I’m sure we’ll probably stick with it.

“The gaffer felt he needed to make a change and it seemed to work for the better. With zonal you can have ‘is it your’s or my zone?’ I said that to the gaffer because he wasn’t sure, but he’d rather we all go to head it than nobody head it.”

When defending a Dons corner, Town could be seen lining up with three bodies along their six yard box and another two bodies lined up around the penalty spot.

Shrews' first clean sheet in 17 in all competitions came with defender Aaron Pierre (Achilles), with George Nurse slotting on to the left of a back three. Both Nurse and Matt Pennington impressed alongside Ebanks-Landell.

There will be concern, however, with Nurse limping off late on ahead of Tuesday's trip to Oxford. He could join Josh Vela and Pierre in the treatment room, while Luke Leahy misses the clash at the Kassam Stadium with a one-match ban after clocking up five yellow cards.