Whilst the journey continues for Shrewsbury to find a new manager, which seems to currently be surrounding Grimsby's Hurst. We now welcome Northampton to Shrewsbury for possibly Danny Coynes last game in charge. Hopefully this will end with a win for Coyne, rather than the results he has had so far. I actually came away from the last game disappointed with the result, but fairly happy with some of the gameplay that had happened. We have got some decent players, they just need a better system/tactics and confidence building. Northampton lost their last game 3-0 and hopefully they will continue that today. Shrewsbury are still without a few players injured, El-Abd and Whalley being the main ones. What squad will start? Possibly Waring and Toney/Mangan up front, with the usual 352 formation, unless coyne has decided to alter things. However I guess he was not expecting to be in charge today. Come on you blues! http://www.shrewsburytown.com/fixtures-results/match-preview/index.aspx?matchid=3925841
Another dire performance against a team who have seemed to have few problems adapting quickly to League 1 (like pretty well every promoted team apart from us). Our players are demoralised, disorganised and unfit and the blame for this must lie squarely with the Chairman, first for not dismissing MM at the end of last season when the writing was clearly on the wall and secondly for not managing the transition properly.The goalkeeping coach and the physio are not the obvious caretaker Number 1 and 2 - someone told me after the game that Black was shouting at the bench after ten minutes that the team was not set up right. Roland should have gone cap in hand to GT or even Chic Bates and asked them to help on a temporary basis or failing that put a couple of the senior players (Black and El-Adb) in charge. We are in the process of turning a difficult situation into an insurmountable one _ If Hurst has not joined us by now give up on him and pick the next best man (Edwards for potential or Pressley for a firefighting job). We will probably need to regroup in League 2 next year anyway but you never know - teams have got out of worse situations than ours with the right man in charge and the proper backing from the chairman.
An interesting comment that Black was telling the dugout to sort out a new setup. I was quite optimistic before the match and thought we didn't do too badly for the first half hour, but then the cracks started appearing after we conceded yet another goal. Is it fully the defenses fault or are our midfield also at blame? Brown seems to regularly come out as MoM alongside Ogogo, yet McGivern, Lancashire and Riley seem to be the culprits. Hopefully we have a new manager by Monday.
The defence does look vulnerable but it starts with the midfield as, when we lose the ball, the opposition regularly run 40 or 50 yards without a convincing challenge.
