Peters deals an Asa in the pack
Wednesday 16th January 2008, 11:40AM GMT.
Gary Peters today continued Shrewsbury Town’s New Year squad reshuffling programme by swooping for Birmingham City central midfielder Asa Hall for the remainder of the season.The 21-year-old – who had a spell on loan at Boston in 2006 – will be hoping to make his Football League breakthrough with Town after a lengthy spell in the reserves at Birmingham.
Peters is confident Hall can make an impression as he prepares to throw him into first-team contention for Saturday’s visit of Morecambe.
“He is a passing player and a box-to-box midfielder who is quite like Dave Edwards,” said the Town boss.
“I have seen him six or seven times for Birmingham reserves and I think he has been their top scorer this season.
“He is a young, athletic player who fits the bill and I felt we just needed another body in midfield with Stewart Drummond leaving and a couple of the possibles (Danny Hall and Neil Ashton) also going out on loan.”
A hectic January has now seen Drummond and Hall leave the club in permanent moves, while Michael Symes and Ashton have both been farmed out on loan to Macclesfield.
On the credit side, Town have brought in Kevin McIntyre, James Meredith, Guy Madjo and now Hall – while Sunday’s goal-scorer Keith Briggs remains at the club on non-contract terms.
“We are still going down the youth route but there maybe still room for an experienced player,” he added.
“Ideally we would still like to bring another striker in.
“We have been a bit erratic over the last three months. I had to make a decision to try and freshen things up a bit and that’s what we have done.”
Peters is hopeful the completion of a string of signings now could result in a relatively quiet summer on the transfer front, in stark contrast to his three previous close seasons at the club.
He has still not ruled out allowing some of his fringe players to be loaned out, or reviving his interest in Port Vale winger Shane Tudor, who saw his initial loan spell in November ruined by injury without kicking a ball.
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I being fair to Gary Peters he does seem the be signing young players with potential. It may well be it will take a couple of seasons to get promotion but at least then we will have a firm base to go forward on. Too many clubs get promoted with an old experienced side and then find they need to rebuild immediately and come staight back down.
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Here we go again! No disrespect to the young lad, but we need an experienced goal scorer. Haven’t we got enough young talented midfielders at the club already. Only time will tell and I really hope i’m proved wrong.
Up The Shrews
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IS HE RELATED TO DANNY HALL OR ASA HARTFORD? OR BOTH?
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Great to see Gary wheeling and dealing with the youngsters. Yes tonyshrew we need an experienced goal scorer, (so does everyone else). Gary would sign one tomorrow if he could find one. Great to see him biding his time and not wasting money and panic buying. All the players now at the club are Gary’s signings but I suspect most of them were not his first choice. It is very hard to find the “right” player and even harder to bring everything together and actually sign him. Gary is doing a first class job and it will take time to make us an “overnight success” Patience is the key (these days patience and football are rarely spoken in the same sentence). Please everyone get behind the team, support Gary and the board to the hilt, with everyone pulling together we will see steady progress.
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Mr. Lunch – your caps lock is stuck.
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well done gary let us get off his back and let the newly improved squad do the talking for him. at present we are in 13th place in the league and if those teams with games in hand win them we will then be in 16th place.
so the season starts here 20 games to go 38 more points please gary
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GP can bring in as many players as he likes but i believe his constant chopping and changing of the side is hugely disruptive and is the main cause of our decline this season. When played to their strengths,in their recognised positions, we had the players to produce a winning side, but he seems to make changes for the sheer sake of it. Now,inexplicably, he’s off-loaded some of our best players and we have start all over again. Players need time to gel and this will only happen if they are given sufficient opportunity to regularly play together in a fixed formation. Fans want a winning side now! Unless GP changes his ways we will continue to become more disillusioned and demoralised.
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Just wait till Adam Proudlock signs!
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I tend to agree with Martinshrew.
People seem to think that there are experienced strikers around who are up for the likes of GP to bid for. Forget it, most of them may have experience but are either ‘journey men’, prone to injury or at best will give there all for part of a season.
The experienced strikers that folks keep harping on about will stay with clubs at a higher level where the money is better, especially if they are coming to the end of their careers and want to maximise earnings. Joachim, Windass, Guinan and all the rest are not the long term answer!!
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this could be a good signing cuz we wont get promotion this season so we have play young players in the first tem to give them experiance and to think about the future and try and get promotion in the next few years. and yh he wont have much experiance now but the only way you can get experiance is by playing matches so if he proves a gd player peters will sign him on a perminent deal.
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I know they aren’t his first choices: his first choices have all been and gone:, Ryan Esson and Chris MacKenzie (not quite gone yet, but still…), Hope, Cowan, Ashton, Ciaran Lyng, Drummond, Hall, Symes, McMenamin, Asamoah, Stallard, Nicholson – to name but a few of the players he’s signed in the last three years, plus the players he inherited. He’s well into his third squad and still not got it right.
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Intersting points MartinShrew: permit me to take you up on a few!!
1, Great to see him biding his time and not wasting money and panic buying – 5 in and 5 out in the January teansfer window smacks of panic to me Martin.
2, Gary is doing a first class job – in what way? do you honestly think we are making any progress after the drivel we have been put through in the last 12 matches. It’s aweful.
3, it will take time to make us an “overnight success” – interesting choice of words. I’ve been a fan for 18 years and I can rarely think of a less entertaining team. Even under the financially constrained era of Jake King, at least we played the right way.
4, Patience is the key – 2 and a half years and no progress, it’s not exactly the same is Newcastle.
5, Please everyone get behind the team – note than NONE of the criticism is aimed at the team. Just look at the players faces and you can see how exasperated they are with this long ball rubbish. We DO back the team, we DON’T back the manager. Big difference.
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Hi Andy
1)Gary has money to spend on a striker when the right one comes up. He wont knee jerk buy.
2)When Gary came we were on our way out of the league again. Now we are looking upwards and 1.5 million made on transfers in 2 and a half years. For a club like Shrewsbury thats a result.
3)Win Draw or loose I still enjoy watching the town and I can see improvement.
4) See 2)
5)The team, the manager, the board, the supporters!!! Same thing were all in this together, lets all pull in the same direction.
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What decline, Desperate Dave? The decline from top of the table after 8 games? Don’t tell me you didn’t see that one coming! 3 points on Saturday will put us on exactly the same points tally as after the same amount of games last season.
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“3 points on Saturday will put us on exactly the same points tally as after the same amount of games last season”
And that’s progress?
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Martinshrew
Understood that Peters has cemented our position in Div2. This alon surely cannot constitute success, and moving the club forward.
you’re a better man than I if you derive pleasure from our current performances. Devoid of ideas. negative tactics. Long ball. 0 creativity.
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You are a 4th division/Conference Club. Get over yourselves!!
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Hi Drew,
We are a 4th Division club aspiring to do a little better, we have come a long way from the conference,
We are solvent, no longer have to sell our best players, have a great new stadium (with improved attendances), we made a profit last year and put over 9 million on our fixed assets, we are on the up.
I don’t suppose Anybody out there would like to swap places with the likes of, Luton, Coventry, or Wrexham?? no thought not.
We are a great little club with a very rosy future, I just wish all the doubters would get things in perspective.
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Martin,
“We are solvent, no longer have to sell our best players”
Where are Symes, Ashton and Drummond then?
Good luck with aspiring to do better, but while STFC board are backing that clown of a manager I feel you will struggle to get out of that division.
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well said martinshrew, yes i remember the bad old days when we were known as the man utd of the conference!
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Hi Drew.
Drummond went back to play nearer his home. They took him on a 2 and a half year contract which we were not prepared to match. The final choice was Stuarts not Gary’s. (and we got a few quid for him as well)
As for Symes & Ashton they went to make way for hopefully better players. Lets face it neither of them were doing the business were they? and were looking surplus to requirements. They are still our players and if they perform they can still be back with us next season.
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Martin,
Surely you must see the point I’m trying to make. The constant massive turnover of players is not conducive to a settled squad. Symes I’ll agree was in and out of the team, but scored goals. The other two formed a basis of your first team. GP’s policy of constantly changing players shows his desperation!
I don’t support STFC. Just making observations that seem glaringly obvious to me, and I might say quite a number of Slop Town FC fans.
Yours
Drew Peacock.
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