Shrewsbury not in a position to 'buy goals'

Relegation-threatened Town are without a win in seven league games after Saturday’s 1-0 reverse at Home Park, a narrow defeat which ended a run of four draws.

Cotterill’s men have scored just twice, including once from a penalty, in that period and the manager explained that the club do not have the required budget to purchase guaranteed League One goalscorers.

“I don’t think we’ve ever been fluent with goals, ever since I’ve been here,” Cotterill said.

“Because what you do is you buy goals, that’s what you do. That’s why the strikers are always more money, their wages are nearly always more than everybody else’s.

“You buy goals, we haven’t got that luxury, to go out and buy goals, like some teams have.

“That’s where it is, there’s nothing I can do about that.”

Cotterill has been in the market for another centre-forward during the last two transfer windows. Town do have strikers enjoying good seasons in front of goal in 11-goal Daniel Udoh and Ryan Bowman, with nine, but their tallies have dried up of late.

The visitors’ closest threat to breaking the deadlock or forcing an equaliser against promotion-chasing Plymouth came courtesy of defender Matt Pennington’s header, one of just two efforts on target. Cotterill, though, felt his team delivered enough quality to force better chances.

Salop remain fourth lowest scorers in the division with 28 goals in 32 games, only the cut-adrift bottom three have netted fewer.

The manager added: “I thought it (the performance) was OK. I’m not sure we did enough to score.

“There were enough chances or half-chances. Their goal was only a half-chance, we got the wrong side of him, which shouldn’t happen.

“It’s something on the edge of the box we usually gobble up and should’ve done, we haven’t been done with many goals like that.

“Then it gives them a pick-up, their crowd gets more buoyant, the longer the game went on, their crowd were the nervous ones, even at 1-0 up.”

Cotterill handed a rare start to Josh Daniels at wing-back while defender Tom Flanagan, the January deadline day recruit from Sunderland, emerged from the bench to play the final half hour in the torrential Devon rain.

“I am happy with how he did, he’s trained really well,” the manager added.

“He played well, I felt we needed a bit more thrust in that area and he did that. He only came off because it was his first start in a little while and it was our third game in a week. JD gives you legs.

He said of Flanagan: “I thought he was excellent when he came on, really good, I was really pleased with him.”