Dave Edwards: Midfield and depth key in busy summer for Shrewsbury
It will be a busy summer for Shrewsbury, but the clock is ticking.
With all the loan signings going back, who played a lot of football at the club last year, and all those out of contract and released, there’s quite a lot of work that needs to be done.
Most League One and League Two clubs have this work every summer, with the length of contracts at this level, so it’s not anything new for Shrewsbury – but with nine or 10 senior players on the books, they need to do a lot of work.
The main area to add at the moment is central midfield. They only have Luke Leahy and Tom Bayliss there at the moment.
A lot of this depends on what formation they’re going to go with. Steve Cotterill often used three at the back, but with Micky Moore coming in I think they’ll try a new playing style and it will be interesting to see what formation they use for that. But midfield in any league is key and particularly in League One. You need physicality in there, but also a little bit of quality to win you games.
Leahy can play a number of positions and has been a superstar in that midfield, so he’ll be important. Bayliss also gives you something a little bit different, but they need numbers.
