Who will take the Shrewsbury Town armband next season?

It will be the third successive season a new leader will be named on the eve of the season.

Luke Leahy was made Shrewsbury captain before they took on Morecambe in 2022. But after a season of doing the role, the midfielder moved on to Wycombe last summer.

That led to Matt Taylor naming Chey Dunkley the captain for the 2023/24 campaign.

He has now moved on to Chesterfield in League Two and a new skipper is set to be appointed.

There has been a huge turnover at the Croud Meadow this summer. Eight senior first-team players were released at the end of last season, and three others decided against accepting new terms in Shropshire.

So Salop head coach Paul Hurst has the job of selecting a new captain – here are three of the leading candidates.

Carl Winchester

The most obvious choice is the Northern Irishman.

He has worn the armband in the three pre-season games so far. Winchester is a very experienced player having made more than 400 Football League appearances across spells at five different clubs.

He has played for Shrewsbury for the last two seasons, the first as a loanee before joining permanently last summer.

The 31-year-old has been terrific in the heart of Town’s midfield, and he has all the qualities you would want a captain to have.

He battles away, covers every blade of grass and never gives anything less than 100 per cent, and he has captaincy experience from his time at Cheltenham.

He is also understood to be a very popular member of the Shrewsbury Town squad and therefore is most likely to be the favourite for the job.

Toto Nsiala

When the 32-year-old joined Shrewsbury earlier this summer, it was the fourth time he has signed for a club managed by Hurst and his assistant Chris Doig.

The big defender spent 18 months at Shrewsbury under Hurst before he left to follow the manager to Ipswich Town at the end of Salop’s tilt at League One promotion in 2018.

Nsiala is clearly a favourite of the Shrewsbury coaching staff, and he just has a presence that will be respected given his stature.

I would expect Winchester to be the favourite for the job, but given Nsiala’s relationship with the Town boss, he will have an outside chance of being named skipper.

Morgan Feeney

This option is more of an unlikely one. Feeney is a player who has experience of wearing the armband having done it during his time at Carlisle.

He, too, has good leadership qualities on the pitch, and you can often hear him bellowing out instructions to his team-mates.

He would be a slightly left-field choice due to his age. At 25 that is young, but ultimately that is just a number, and if Hurst thinks he is the right man for the job then he could do well.

If it is not to be any of those three, then there is still a chance someone who comes in during the latter stages of the transfer window could fulfil the role.

You would expect it to be someone Hurst has worked with before if that was to be the case.