Midfielder Paul Murray today backed Shrewsbury Town’s strength in depth to be the key factor to negotiating a hectic and crucial December.

Town begin a run of six games in 22 days with Saturday’s visit of Rotherham, with a string of intriguing encounters to look forward to both before and during the hectic period.

During that spell, Town face unbeaten leaders Wycombe, fellow high-flyers Rochdale and Bury as well as League One Brighton in the area semi-final of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy.

And Murray is confident Shrewsbury, unbeaten in their last six League Two outings, are in strong shape to tackle that testing programme.

“There are some fantastic games to look forward to and the key for us is to make sure we are in a good position to kick on in the new year, and hopefully be in the next round of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy,” said the former QPR and Gretna 32-year-old.”It’s really tight in the League and there are four teams on 31 points at the moment.

“But with the games over the next few weeks, there’s going to be some real changes and we have to make sure we remain in the leading group.

“We have got such a strong squad and a lot of depth so that should stand us in good stead.”

An Achilles problem left Murray contemplating a nine-week absence early in the season.

But he has now returned to the fray and now has his sights on continuing to build up his fitness over the coming weeks.

“I think it has been almost two years to the day since I played Saturday and Tuesday because I only ever played the League games last season at Grenta, so it was nice to do that last week (against Lincoln and Dagenham & Redbridge),” he added.

“The aim is to try and get through the 90 minutes of games and that will come.”