Hmm. Here we go again. This game will be without me due to my being in London for the weekend, so if we lose, blame me. Hopefully, the players are raring to go after not doing anything on Tuesday night, and I'd imagine we'll see one change from the starting XI from the last game, with Wildig starting ahead of Taylor. Off topic slightly, but did anyone do anything on Tuesday night? I did nothing at all, and paid a tenner for the privilege. Anyway... Aldershot: Recent League Form: LLDWWW Top Scorers: Hylton (15), Guttrige (6), Rankine (5) Last Meeting: Aldershot 1-0 Shrewsbury(Guttridge) League Position: 10[SUP]th[/SUP]; 56 points from 38 games; GD -1 Away Record: W7, D2, L10, F21, A29 Town Recent League Form: DDWLWW Home Record: W14, D4, L0, F30, A10 Lenny's SUPER Fact: Aldershot have won more of their last 10 matches than us Lenny's GRANDISON Fact: When Grandison does press-ups, he doesn't push himself up, he pushes the world down Lenny's Prediction: Shrewsbury 1-2 Aldershot (Collins) Attendance 5,512
i dread the shots, fresh from their success against the gas, they will be looking to make their mark on the shrews unblemished unbeaten at home record. shots beat gas 1-0 at h. beat sarfend 1-0 away, indeed they have taken all 6 points off sarfend. beat bantams at home 1-0. that is 3 wins on the trot, prior to that they drew 2-2 at creepies, L 1-3 at cobblers and L 0=1 at gulls. beware of a vastly improving shots not far from the play offs, i forsee doom and gloom for the shrews at 16.55 on saturday shrews o shots 2 5543
Worry ye not, my friends. I foresee a Shrews team hungry for goals after a good (if ultimately frustrating) performance on Tuesday. 3-0 to the Shrews with Gornell acting as the main provider for Collins' first hat trick.
if shrews are to go up autopromo they must take 6 points from their 2 games in hand. gulls and crawley look dangerous and could well go up with swindle. but the shrews will not allow that and i am totally altering my prediction. forget shrews 0 shots 2 and change it to shrews 4 shots 0 att 5667. collins 2 gornell and wroe. come on you shrews, breath on 'em. floreat salopia it is now 00.50, shall i have a cold ginsters, no time for bed said zebedee
The star of the show today was an incompetent referee. After his first visit to the GM he will not be welcomed back. Aldershot were a team in the Holdsworth mould a la Wimbledon. Physical and at the same time whimps when they they had some of their own medicine. Their performance was led by a bloke who was continually "taking the Mekki". A new hate figure to live alongside the infamy of Ainsworth, Richards, Mohsni, Howe et al.
We were as poor as we have been all season at home and got sucked into trying to play head tennis with a team of giants. However, when we were under no pressure we were either giving the ball away (Grandison and Wright in particular) or overhitting crosses or through balls (Richards and Macalister). Yes, the ref was poor - it looked a soft penalty but Geramine is going to ground too easily for my liking and a defender is asking for trouble doing that in the box. The sending off was a mystery to me - it looked like a clash of heads on a 50-50 ball and surely we can appeal it as we have nothing to lose because, if it stands, Macalister has played his last game for us. The sending off did not galvanise us but Marvin coming on did - how Gornell can be preferred to him is another mystery to me. We had nothing coming down the right wing - Taylor's lack of discipline could cost us dearly unless Lionel is brought back in immediately. Finally, we should be indebted to Neal who was excellent at the end, making two fine saves and salvaging us a point. With the form that Torquay and Crawley have shown recently we will not get away with it if we put in another poor performance like that - you can blame the ref all you like but the truth is we were lucky to get a point today.
In defence of team selection, it was no surprise that Morgan was left out after Plymouth. He had enough chances to win us the game. Since then we have won 2 and looked like winning a third without him. Both Richards and Grandison were poor defensively yesterday-as poor as I have seen them. Having seen the incidents on TV, it was an unnecessary challenge by Grandison whether it deserved a penalty or not begs the question. The sending off was clearly a 50/50 challenge for the ball with no deliberate intent but it will be difficult to overturn. McAllister was just more committed and Mekki is a joke. Even the Shots support recognise he goes to ground too easily.
i do hope after such a great season and with 7 games to go town do not bottle it. if town finish up in the playoffs with the calibre of the clubs they are due to play, they will in my opinion have bottled it. their achilles heel for most of the season is having at least 1 lemon up front, now we may have lemons ripening elsewhere. it is time for a brisk team bonding session on fairbourne sands to instill that extra vitality up front , int midfield and at the back. there must be tiredness in the squad after a very busy 2 months, march in particular. one final push shrews, and beware winter returns for easter. floreat salopia
I maintain that I thought Collins and Gornell should start but neither did much of note. However a total lack of service didn't help- at which point of the match did we manage to string 2 passes together? The 85+ minutes after MM's goal! Just not good enough i'm afraid.
Collins frequently lost the ball either through bad passing or taking too long with it. Wright needs to learn to flick the ball on into his desired direction rather than trap it and then think what to do next, he looked somewhat lost at times yesterday. Unfortunately I was cleaning my glasses when McAllister was carded !!
waisted chance to establish our credentials, we cant carry on dropping silly points, too many players had off days today, instead of kicking on to confirm a place off place, the troops need rousing, so come on GT, work your magic..
the only thing to do bar playing young tom is to get gt into shorts and put him on the wing. suddenly young tom is a match winner, come on shrews get those tired legs going again. floreat salopia