Shrewsbury Town's Carl Winchester stars as Paul Hurst returns him to midfield role

Since Hurst has returned to Shropshire for his second stint as Shrewsbury boss, the former Sunderland man has been nothing short of immense.

The team has picked up and performances have been more consistent with Winchester and a couple of others playing a pivotal role in that.

Tom Bayliss put in one of his best displays of the season the other night against Barnsley as he looks to be getting back up to speed after a long time out injured.

Another player who has been excellent has been Mal Benning, but in truth, he has played well since the start of the year so not all the credit can go to Hurst for that.

But Winchester has been essential to the improvement of the team as part of the engine room in midfield.

Before Hurst arrived the 30-year-old had spent the majority of the season playing at right-wing-back under former boss Matt Taylor.

In defence of the previous head coach, this was largely down to the crippling injury crisis which ruled out so many of Shrews’ players for a large proportion of the first half of the season.

Winchester was perhaps the best option they had with Elliot Thorpe and Elliott Bennett struggling for consistent minutes due to injury.

So one of the reasons for his turnaround in form is his change in position.

In the clash at Northampton, he played as the sole holding midfielder, and in the three games since he has played alongside either Taylor Perry or new arrival Jack Hinchy in a 4-2-3-1.

That different formation has allowed Morgan Feeney to come in at right-back – who on the whole has done OK.

Playing a central defender at full-back often works, but it is perhaps a stretch to play them at wing-back which can leave them a little bit exposed.

Feeney doing a good job at right-back has allowed Winchester to excel in the middle of the park.

He is still getting around the pitch like he always has done, but with Town trying to keep the ball more, he can show off his technical ability as well.

The best example of that would be the terrific diagonal pass which set up Dan Udoh’s goal against Cambridge.

And Hurst revealed that he and Winchester spoke about where he wanted to play in the side.

He said: “He is an experienced player and I had a chat with him about his preferred position and I think it is one of those where he is happy as long as he is in the team.

“But we spoke about either playing at right-back or in that central midfield area where he had been playing for us.

“He has done a good job. He holds his position well and he can talk to the other players and try to get them in the right positions.

“He has had a couple of strikes now from the edge of the box and forced a couple of saves, and again he was one of those on Tuesday at the end where people might look and think if I had kept him on then that might not have happened with Taylor.

“But I think he had run his race realistically, but he has done great.”