Dave Edwards: Shrewsbury can climb table with shooting boots on

There has been one-and-a-half really good performances.

From half-time against Rotherham it’s been as well as Town have played and as dominant as they’ve been. We had to hang on a bit in the first half against the leaders but understandably so, they are such a good team.

Something switched and it was as good a 45 minutes as Town have played. They will count themselves unlucky not to have won with George Nurse’s thunderbolt against the woodwork with Matty Pennington just unable to turn in the rebound.

Steve Cotterill will be delighted with the way they played, in particular having lost players in recent weeks. It was a very good performance off the back of the big Burton win.

I felt Cambridge on Saturday was a bit of a banana skin. The U’s have been in good form in 2022 but Town absolutely outclassed them in every single aspect of the game and just couldn’t get that goal.

It was chance after chance. Luke Leahy went close, as did Ryan Bowman, Dan Udoh should’ve scored. The manager will be devastated he didn’t win that game of football.

But he will take a lot of heart by how his team performed. It was more what this side are capable of, in recent games. You know if you play like that 90 per cent of the time you will pick up positive results and be a mid-table to top-half team.

Unfortunately we haven’t seen it enough this season, but it was an impressive week performance-wise, just without more wins.

The points picked up have been vital to extend that gap to the bottom four to eight points. The teams below Town have been faltering. I never really thought we would be in danger, I thought the team was too good, but now there’s a lovely buffer to hopefully start to look up.

The goals against record – the third best in League One after the top two – is crazily good. It’s mad how it has happened, especially as the elusive first clean sheet didn’t arrive until October! Now Marko Marosi has one of the best records in recent Town history.

This back three is as good as I’ve seen Shrewsbury have in recent years. It’s a really good blend with workhorses in front.

At times it might have taken away what Town can do from an attacking point but not these last two games. They’ve got the balance right and gone for the throat.

I do like the change in system. A 3-4-3 gets attacking players on the pitch. Udoh, Bowman and Tom Bloxham aren’t scoring as many as they want at the moment but it gets three forwards on. They all work so hard defensively too.

Town host high-flying Oxford on Saturday with 10 games left this season. After the brilliant Christmas run I think everyone was looking up at where we could possibly finish.

January and February form really hampered ambitions for a top 12 spot. But a few weeks ago fans would have taken some end-of-season mediocrity with safety secured and little on the line.

You have to look to keep improving each year, which is what Town have done aside from the anomaly under Paul Hurst. If Town can push to finish between 12th and 14th then the fans will be happy after what has been a difficult season at times. It can give hope that, going into next season, maybe something special can start to happen.

I personally don’t want to finish 17th! It feels we’ve been stuck in that position for an eternity, so I’d like to finish higher