Town blogger dreams of Wembley

Town’s road to Wembley began on Tuesday night with a hard-fought win over Exeter, writes Town blogger James Pugh. But didn’t they leave it late!

Some people have claimed the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy is a ‘Mickey Mouse’ cup, but winning is winning and I bet if we reached the final, 20,000+ Shrews fans would be there.

Let’s hope we get a kind home draw on Saturday so that fans are not having to travel hundreds of miles on a Tuesday night.

The league remains a priority but if we can get into a winning habit in the cups then this will hopefully continue in the league and at the end of the season we might be celebrating more than one success.

The cup competitions also enables our fringe players like Symes, Pugh and Humphrey get a game to show to Simpson what they can do in a competitive match and push for a start in the first team.

The performances of Symes and Humphreys against Exeter and in the reserves have been very encouraging and long may it continue.

And this is coming from one of their biggest critics!

Our win against Exeter could be described as being a bit fortunate and was largely down to the impressive performance of the keeper Daniels who continues to impress and is showing the kind of form Joe Hart did while he was here.

I am not sure if he wants to stay long term (I hear he wants to fight for his place at West Brom) but if we gain promotion and enjoys his time here then hopeful we can snap him up on a permanent transfer.

It was a quiet transfer deadline day for Town, with no ins or outs.

I would have liked us to have signed another central midfielder as I still feel we are short in that department, even when everyone is fit.

Darren Moss is doing an okay job in that role filling in, but without Murray and Hunt, we don’t seem to have enough strength in depth.