Matt Taylor puts his faith in Shrewsbury

The head coach has complete faith in his Salop team, despite going five matches in a row in all competitions without a goal or a win.

A 1-0 defeat at Leyton Orient was the latest of that run – but Town produced their best display for a number of weeks.

And Taylor declared: “You can see we are a good team – genuinely, we are a good team – but the one thing that is killing us, our Achilles heel, is when we get our chances we’re not putting them away.

“I’ve stood here been disappointed that we haven’t created clear-cut opportunities, we’ve had half-chances, but this is a completely different story.

“The players need to own that, I need to own that and we need to make sure in our next game against Charlton we put in the same level of performance.

“And if we do that and we up our intensity in front of goal then we’ve got a great chance.

“I’m not making excuses, but the players are a new group , we’ve played worse than that and won.

“That’s our best performance I think overall in the last four or five, but I’m still stood here talking about a defeat, so it’s quite easy to see what needs to change – we need to put the ball in the back of the net.

“If we do that, we will blow teams away – I have no concern about that whatsoever.” He added: “This game is so emotional – you win and everything ids great, you lose and everything is terrible. What we can’t do is believe that we’re terrible because I don’t think we are.

“I think we’ve got a really good group of League One footballers who at the moment aren’t getting the luck that their performances and their effort and application deserve.”

Despite a superb opening 20 minutes from Town, it was Orient who bagged the winner. And Shrewsbury’s belief seemed to dip after that. So how does Taylor plan to get his side ready for Saturday’s clash with Charlton Athletic at the Croud Meadow?

“We need to reinforce the constant messages that we give the players, and we most definitely will – as we always do – analyse the performance,” he said. “There’s just so much that I liked about us apart from the really important thing that we haven’t put the ball in the back of the net,

“For the players, there has to be an acceptance of responsibility when we get into those moments and what we need to do is practice harder on the training pitch and try to recreate that pressure. And they need to, when we get those massive moments in games – because they are – take their chances.

“There isn’t a magic wand, it just comes down to trusting in the process.”

Midfielder Carl Winchester was a doubt heading into the game, but shook off that injury to play a big part until he suffered a knock in a challenge with Darren Pratley that forced him off on the hour-mark.

“It was an impact, he said he got stamped on,” said Taylor. “I didn’t see it, but I need to have a chat with the officials after this around a few things.

“It was disappointing to have to take him off because of what he gives you physically, but then it’s an opportunity for Tom (Bayliss) to come on and make a difference.”