Shrewsbury's Elliott Bennett says players must take heart from recent form
Elliott Bennett insists Shrewsbury Town can be encouraged by their recent form – and performance in defeat to Bolton on Saturday – as they head to basement boys Gillingham tonight.
Crisis club Gills, who are without a manager and a win for 15 matches in all competitions, play host to Town tonight having dropped to the foot of the table over the weekend.
They did mount an impressive second-half response at leaders Wigan on Saturday, in drawing level from 2-0 down, but lost late on for a third defeat on the spin and eighth in nine League One games, where they have only taken a single point.
Gills, who are under the caretaker stewardship of former Priestfield player and manager Steve Lovell, are 10 points from safety having won just three times in the league all season.
Steve Cotterill’s visitors, who travelled to Kent yesterday, slipped into the sights of the division’s bottom four after Saturday’s cruel last-gasp home defeat to the Trotters. Now in 18th, Shrews find themselves just three points above the drop zone ahead of a crucial fortnight and games against rivals sitting 24th, 19th and 20th.
Experienced wing-back Bennett has impressed for his side in recent weeks as Town enjoyed a five-game unbeaten league run and climbed as high as 14th. Cotterill’s men have had the top half in their sights and now must work to widen the gap between themselves as danger once more.
“We’ve got to take the positives if there are some, and I think our performances over how many months have been really good,” said vice-captain Bennett, 33. “We’ve probably deserved more points than maybe we’ve got.
“But we’ve got to get another run going now, starting tonight, and if we can continue with those performance levels then we will pick up more points than we don’t.
“When you lose and you’ve been bad there’s not a lot to take, but we’ve got to keep the performance levels high.
“If we perform like we have been of late we’ll give anyone a game in this league, and as the gaffer demands, it’s not alright for us to get beat, we have to want to win, it doesn’t matter who we play, and aim to win and the performances definitely warrant more points.”
Bennett revealed the positive attitude manager Cotterill drills into his players, which can sometimes make for lively training drills.
“That’s the way the gaffer’s always been. As players we do small games in training and the competitive nature is crazy really – sometimes you think ‘wow – you don’t get a medal for winning on Tuesday morning!’” Bennett smiled.
“But the gaffer demands you want to win, that’s what you need, you have to have it within you and lately that’s what we’ve been going out to do.
“We don’t go anywhere and accept getting beat. We showed that at Anfield as well, we got beat and were disappointed to lose to one of the best teams in the world.”
Gills, whose talks with Bromley boss Andy Woodman are reported to have broken down, changed to their favoured midfield diamond formation at half-time after a disappointing performance while using a flat midfield four saw them down at the break at the DW Stadium.
Midfielder Ben Reeves and striker Charlie Kelman were introduced and the former netted but limped off with a foot problem with 10 minutes left.
