Matt Taylor: Shrewsbury young guns may get loan moves
Matt Taylor says a couple of Shrewsbury Town’s younger players may be allowed to leave on loan to gain valuable senior football this season.
Salop are currently focused on bringing in reinforcements to their squad ahead of the window closing next week.
But the Town boss says a few of the club’s talented youngsters may depart the Croud Meadow to help their development.
“A couple of the younger ones might do to get some experience to play,” he said when asked if there were any potential loan moves.
“That will be in line with their development plan. Training is really important and I would never undervalue the work we do on the grass. The amount of learning that is done with younger players going out on loan and playing men’s football is huge. When I look back at my career now, I did a lot of my learning by watching senior players on the pitch.
“And if we cannot offer that Saturday-Tuesday calendar of football then of course we have to make sure our players go and play football.
“The game at times can be the teacher, if they are not playing football here then they need to go and play.
“Where that is locally? I do not know, but I think it is the right thing to do as we are ultimately developing our own players.”
Travis Hernes, who has just penned a three-year deal at the Croud Meadow, may be one of the players who could benefit but he has been used by Taylor so far this season.
The Town head coach says playing lots of games for Luton at a young age helped him massively as a player.
“It helped me massively because you then understand what the game requires,” he continued.
“All of our players here have talent. But it is not that talent that keeps them where they are. It is understanding first of all what the talent is, so what is their super strength and what are they good at.
“What underpins that is that football is played between your ears so you can make the decisions, and it is very difficult to replicate that on the training pitch.
“If they get exposure to men’s football where it matters, I just think it is massive.
“I understood from a young age that it mattered to win. Players want their win bonuses they have got to pay their mortgages they want to be able to buy their wives a nice present. Therefore it is imperative with young players that if they are not involved on a regular basis to go and play football.
“As we do not have a development group we have to bridge that gap in some way.”
