Steve Cotterill calls on Josh Daniels to be ready for run in side
Steve Cotterill has called on Shrewsbury wing-back to remain fit and ready for a run of regular games.
Northern Irishman Daniels, 25, returned from five weeks on the sidelines to play 70 minutes from the bench at Carlisle last Saturday before completing a full 90 minutes in Wednesday’s last-gasp defeat at high-flying Wigan.
Daniels’ season has been hampered by two ankle injuries which have limited him to just two league starts. His appearance in Wigan was a first league start since Portsmouth in mid-August.
He has struggled with injury issues since arriving from Glenavon in summer 2020 but, with first-choice right wing-back Elliott Bennett filling in midfield with David Davis suspended, Daniels is vying for the role with forward Rekeil Pyke and could start again in tomorrow’s crunch clash at basement boys Doncaster.
Cotterill said of Daniels: “JD is always up there when we do the running in pre-season.
“JD is one of the fit boys, he’s just got to stay fit. He had a few injury problems last year and he’s had a few this year.
“It’s about staying fit, keeping fit, staying strong, being professional because you’ve got to be fit in this game.
“All the players at the top level are supremely fit and if you have any aspirations – some of our young players – of playing at a higher level, you have to be a supreme athlete.”
Town players were off yesterday as a recovery day and re-convene at Sundorne Castle today for an extremely tight turnaround ahead of the trip to the Keepmoat Stadium.
Cotterill, whose side remain winless on the road in League One, said after going down at Wigan his players have paid the price for games on heavy pitches this week.
Asked if he can look back and take positive from the DW Stadium display, he added: “I will probably not, no – because we’ve been beat 2-1 and there was an enormous amount of work that went into it.
“But at the end of the day it’s a defeat, so there probably won’t be anything that we will look back on, because we haven’t got time to look back.
“We’ve got a very quick turnaround for another game, I understand the question because if you take the two goals out we were excellent.”
