Away blues may become trait for 'evolving' Shrewsbury – Steve Cotterill
Steve Cotterill feels Shrewsbury Town’s poor away form could become a ‘trait’ while the side continues to evolve.
Town have collected just a single point on the road this term as Tuesday’s defeat at Oxford made it six defeats from seven.
Their three League One victories have come at Montgomery Waters Meadow and Cotterill pointed out how the run contrasts with the impressive victories picked up away from when he took over last November.
The Town boss, whose side are 21st, admitted it did not matter whether points came home or away, but he said while the focus is on securing points at home, away form could continue to struggle.
“I told you when I first came here and we got a load of wins on the road and you said about having home wins for the fans – we’ve managed to produce that (this season), we just haven’t managed to produce away wins for away fans,” Cotterill said.
“I said at the time that it doesn’t matter where the wins come as long as we get the points. The only thing is, you’re always reflecting on your home form, and you can get home form better but can’t get the away form right, that’s what happens when you’re a team changing and evolving like ours is.
“So until we can get those nuts and bolts in the right areas, this will probably be a trait.”
Town return to the Meadow on Saturday for a home clash with newly-promoted Cambridge United, who have started well and sit 16th with just three defeats from 12.
Cotterill’s men are the division’s third-lowest scorers with 10 goals from 14 outings and drew a black at the Kassam Stadium in midweek, where the statistics read zero efforts on target.
The boss said he ‘can’t do anything about’ his side’s finishing, something worked on religiously. “I can’t do anything about that, with them,” he added.
“We’ve worked a lot, and when Nathanael Ogbeta gets into the final third and is having shots, he hasn’t hit the target for ages now, Nat.
“We work on it every day, work on that especially with Nat coming inside and can he get a shot off with the little stepover he does.
“But if you don’t hit the target, it’s the same for everyone. The other thing is there will be shots on target on Tuesday and there’s blocks in there, the blocks don’t always get acknowledged, there would’ve been shots on target, more than one, but they’ve got blocks in.”
