Shrewsbury band together to battle through injury crisis

Town have had it tough over the last six weeks, battling injuries and squad depletion as they have navigated their way through their League One fixture list.

After Dan Udoh and George Nurse were ruled out for the season at the start of the campaign Salop’s squad has always been under pressure.

But Tom Bayliss’s ankle ligament damage in March and Rekeil Pyke’s Achilles problem has put further stress on it.

And when you add Matthew Pennington and Christian Saydee’s niggles in recent weeks – Cotterill has been left with the bare bones to choose from.

But the boss says he will keep working at it.

He said: “You either get working and you get into it or you give up and that is not my personality to give up.

“I have never given up on anything in my life, so I do not think I will ever do that now.

“I know that the boys need me, but I know that I can count on them because I need them as well.

“I think that everyone will see on paper that it has been a difficult couple of weeks.

“I think it has been difficult all season because you can bring up Dan Udoh and George Nurse.

“They have been huge misses, just because they are two solid players who have played at this level.

“So when we lost them, what you have to do is you have to replace them, that is the only way you can get around losing them. It is the only way.

“And the club cannot afford to do that so that makes my job doubly difficult so the last few weeks I think what happens is you have to rehabilitate very quickly.

“Not only have you got to motivate the team on a matchday you have got to coach them on the days leading up to that game.

“All the match-related stuff is what I coach. I would say there is no hiding away from it. It has been tough but you have two choices.”

Against Bolton last weekend there was a return to the starting XI for Pennington. He came back into the team to play at right-back, which was a relief.

And Saydee was fit enough to play the 20 minutes at the end of the game at the University of Bolton Stadium – he came on for Rob Street who the boss said ‘had no gallop left in him’.

Those two returning to the team, as well as Ryan Bowman returning from suspension, does give Shrews a boost heading into the final three league games of the season.

They could, depending on an ankle problem, welcome back Tom Flanagan this weekend – he has now served his two-game suspension for the red card against Portsmouth.

Town welcome Sheffield Wednesday to the Meadow for their penultimate home game this weekend before taking on Bristol Rovers and Lincoln to finish the season.