Midfielder Kevin McIntyre could be back in time to boost Shrewsbury Town’s League Two promotion challenge after making a successful return to full training.

The former Macclesfield man has been out since suffering a double leg fracture at Port Vale in January but joined in training yesterday.

Boss Paul Simpson is cautiously optimistic about his prospects.

“Kevin trained yesterday with everybody for the first time and it’s just going to take him a while to get back into it,” said Simpson.

“He’s hopefully going to have a full week of training and then next week we’ll decide if he’s ready to play part of the game against Lincoln in the reserves.

“We need to make sure he’s right and we don’t want to take any risks with him, but we might just see him before the end of the season.

“I think we’ve missed him. He has had some stick from supporters but nobody appreciates the job he does in the midfield.

“He gives us balance and he’s got a great attitude. He’s a good character to have, and you can’t have too many of them.”

Meanwhile, Simpson has insisted he will not be setting his side any targets over the remainder of the season – apart from winning every game.

The Town chief believes it will now need a maximum haul of six out of six to have any chance of getting involved in the automatic promotion shake-up.

That remains his ultimate goal, but he also admits he has his eye on the play-off contenders – including in-form Chesterfield, who are in action this evening.

“If they win against Aldershot tonight they go above us and there’s nothing we can do about that,” he said.

“All we can do is sit there and have a few regrets about games we’ve dropped points in where we should have done better. Chesterfield are on an incredible run of results and we have to hope it won’t continue.

“But we’ve got a couple of clubs in our sights and we’re in a position where, if we pick up the results we want and others slip up, we can still be thinking about the top three places as a target.”

• Centre-back Mike Jackson has resumed running, having been sidelined since the end of February due to a cartilage problem.

By CHRIS HUDSON