Sam Cosgrove's Shrewsbury Town future remains 'up in the air' ahead of transfer deadline

The striker, 25, has endured a frustrating few months on loan in Shropshire from Birmingham City despite an encouraging start to his temporary stint spell.

He has started just eight of 29 League One fixtures – none since mid-October – and made just a couple of fleeting substitute appearances in almost two months.

It was thought that – like former loan midfield colleague Khanya Leshabela who returned to parent club Leicester City this month – ex-Aberdeen man Cosgrove would return to his Championship parent club.

But he remains with Shrewsbury having trained this week and returned to the matchday squad for Saturday's 1-1 draw at AFC Wimbledon, albeit remained an unused substitute, for the first time in a couple of weeks.

Cosgrove arrived at Shrewsbury and took the No.9 shirt in August with plenty of promise as a Cotterill target from the previous January and having been prolific for two seasons in Scotland top flight with Aberdeen, which earned him a big-money move to Blues.

He managed a couple of early goals but a loan spell in Shrewsbury has not worked out and there have been reports linking the frontman with moves elsewhere, including back north of the border and to League Two.

Cotterill, however, revealed that simply returning the striker's loan is not as cut and dried as it may seem.

"I don't really know on that one," manager Cotterill admitted. "There's things that are happening but what will happen is that will be a tomorrow (Sunday) or Monday one.

"We just need to see where we are with that, that's up in the air at the moment.

"It's a little bit of everything really, it's not quite as straight-forward as players coming in and players going out, there are other parties involved."