Shrewsbury boss Steve Cotterill says no under 23 side makes it harder to get fringe players fit

Take Shrewsbury Town for example, Rekeil Pyke was called into the starting XI 20 minutes before kick-off at Cambridge on Boxing Day after Tom Flanagan fell ill.

But the wing-back had not started a game since early November when Town lost to Barnsley, so it was always going to be hard for him to get through 90 minutes.

It is difficult for Town's players without the EFL Trophy which they used at the start of the year to get the minutes they need to be ready should Steve Cotterill need them.

And if injury strikes, Salop find themselves with a player who has not played for some time.

Similarly, it works the same when players are coming back from injury, Julien Dacosta needs minutes to get him up to speed following a long layoff, but the only place the Coventry loanee can do that is in a competitive first-team match – which is not an ideal scenario.

It is a floor in the system and Shrewsbury cannot afford to have an under-23s side to give the players who are not in the starting XI a chance to stay sharp, and they do not have the facilities for it either according to the boss Cotterill, even though he admits it would be good for them.

He said: "We are not big enough to go from having under-18s, and under-21s to having under-23s we would not have the finances to do that and we would not have the training area to do that.

"So the money that involves is too much for us.

"It just would not happen.

"Years ago what used to happen is you could have a reserves side which means you can put any of those young players into a reserve league.

"It would be good if there was something in between for them."

More senior teams could make it easier for the Salop coaching staff to assess young players too, at the end of the season the coaches have to make difficult choices about players as is the way in professional sports.

The Town boss says he consults David Longwell, who is the first-team coach, as well as being heavily involved with the academy at Montgomery Waters Meadow when those difficult decisions come around.

"It is difficult, and it is difficult on the young boys too, because you have to make decisions when they are 16, 17 and 18 so that is why we have a lot of them training with us," he continued.

"They may be really good footballers, but their development might not come until late.

"When they are going through puberty, anyone would know when you have been a school with someone, they can be six foot, and they can be five foot five and they could have a beard and you could not.

"They all develop at different times, but I think we do quite well with them.

"They always freshen it up, they are young and they run around.

"Dave is up with me now, but he still has strong links with the academy and it is a difficult decision, as you have to make a tough decision on some of them.

"We will have to make those again at the end of this season, and you just have to gamble on getting those decisions right, but I speak to Dave a fair bit about that because he would have seen a fair bit more in youth development in football than I have done because of being a men's first team manager.

"So I take on board a lot of what Dave has to say, and I trust him very much on that."