Steve Cotterill transfer update: Shrewsbury 'waiting on' one target
Steve Cotterill revealed Shrewsbury Town are 'waiting on an answer' for one transfer target – as leg work from months in advance have paid off this summer.
The Town boss is pleased with the six new recruits he has been able to bring to Montgomery Waters Meadow so far during the close season, with more still on his radar.
Cotterill, who oversaw an impressive performance despite 3-1 defeat against his former club Burnley on Friday night, said the transfer target in question was 'not critical'.
He explained that the flurry of recent five additions inside a week do not just happen in the space of seven days, but are the outcome of months of hard graft behind the scenes – even at the expense of summer holidays.
"Well we're waiting for an answer on one, but it's not critical or anything like that," Cotterill said when asked of anymore imminent arrivals.
"A lot of the critical work has been over the course of the summer.
"The summer's been incredibly difficult, incredibly long, incredibly hard, all of a sudden you see three, four, five, six signings come over the line all in one hit.
"That hasn't happened in a week, I can assure you, that's happened from six months ago with Julien Dacosta, same as with Shippers (Jordan Shipley), and lots and lots of meetings, no holidays, to try to put the team together.
"It's been a really tough summer, hopefully it'll bear fruit."
Jordan Shipley caught the eye against the Clarets with an outstanding equaliser as one of five from six new signings to start and feature.
Aiden O'Brien sat out, but there were impressive signs from new faces Chey Dunkley, Julien Dacosta, Taylor Moore and Tom Bayliss.
Cotterill's side have one more scheduled friendly, against another Championship outfit as Cardiff come to town on Tuesday. They currently have a free weekend next weekend, seven days prior to the start of the League One season.
The manager said: "It was a really good workout, I'm really pleased with that. The one thing you want in pre-season is a workout and we've been worked there.
"Only a few games after our first game the other day, we've got a busy week with Cardiff next Tuesday as well, we're really pleased, it was just what we wanted.
"It was a great game for us, we did far better in the second half than the first, I thought we showed them just a touch too much respect in the first half.
"But in the second half when we laid a glove on them, some of our pressing was tremendous against a really, really good team."
Shipley's stunning cushioned half-volley into the top corner from outside the box was Town's first goal of pre-season in their second game.
"It was almost like he needed that, I just felt like he needed that," Cotterill said of his new midfielder, signed from Coventry.
"I think that may help him going forward, obviously. The boys that've come in a yard behind the others, where they haven't had the summer programme quite as hard as our boys have had.
"Our boys have come back and hit the ground running, a few of the lads that have come in are not quite where we'd want them to be at this moment, but that's to be expected."
