Shrewsbury Town's Josh Vela targets consistency

The Shrewsbury midfielder put his injury woes behind him with a stand-out display in last Saturday’s 1-0 victory over Charlton, which lifted Steve Cotterill’s men out of the League One drop zone.

Vela, 27, had only returned from more than six weeks on the sidelines with a medial ligament injury the previous Saturday, in the 2-1 defeat at Cheltenham.

But he played his role in Cotterill’s men securing a welcome four points from consecutive home games against Sunderland and Charlton, the latter of which saw him labelled man-of-the match by Cotterill, who claimed the performance was ‘the real Josh Vela’.

“I started the season a bit slowly, got in my stride a bit for a few games and then the injury came, which was disappointing,” said Vela, Town’s player of the year from last season.

“Hopefully now I can start building to show everyone what I can do on a regular basis.

“Everyone wants to stay in the team, play every game, hopefully after performances like that I’ll stay in the team and we’ll get the wins to move up the table.”

Vela returned from injury in the EFL Trophy exit at Wigan two Wednesdays ago but was used in an unfamiliar wide position against the Latics – and following Elliott Bennett’s dismissal at Cheltenham – as he built up match fitness.

The former Bolton star, who is out of contract at Montgomery Waters Meadow next summer, believes Saturday’s victory over the Addicks will prove a spark in confidence as Town look to pull clear of the bottom four

“The Wigan Trophy game wasn’t the main thing – obviously we wanted to win – but we’ve got to get results in the league,” he added.

“We’ve shown our grit and character in these three last games, we can get results against the bigger sides in this league, or the so-called bigger sides.

“Winning breeds confidence, like we did last year when the manager came in, we got on that run and were winning games.

“You get more confidence and start looking up the table. Hopefully now we are out of the bottom four we can look up and get results.”

Town park their league concerns this weekend, with a long FA Cup second round trip north to League Two Carlisle on Saturday. Salop head back to Wigan in the league next Wednesday.