Manager Paul Simpson has urged his Shrewsbury Town team to display the “strength of character” to cope with the promotion pressures of the League Two run-in.

Town are hoping for a Good Friday to remember tomorrow as they hit the road to Bury, before completing their Easter programme with the visit of Rochdale on Monday.

Six of the League Two’s top nine are without a win in their last three matches, a statistic which proves teams are being gripped by nerves as the finishing line approaches.

One of those six teams is Shrewsbury who are unbeaten in seven games, but have drawn the last five.

And Simpson admitted nerves are affecting teams all over the country at every level.

“Wolves have been outstanding all season in the Championship and have now had a hiccup, Leicester the same in League One,” he said.

“It’s now a case of who has got that strength of character to come through it.

“This was always going to be a big weekend and it’s a great one to look forward to.

“We can keep ourselves in with thoughts of automatic (promotion) if we can win both of them and, for the play-off positions, we need to get as many points as we can out of it.

“For weeks, we keep looking and being thankful other results have gone our way. Now we need to get the three points ourselves and also hope they go our way because there are some interesting games coming up this weekend.”

Simpson believes Town need at least nine points from their final five games to secure a play-off berth, but has vowed to push for a maximum return.

“I thought in February that about 76 or 77 points would get automatic and normally between 70 and 76 gets you in the play-offs,” he added.

“I think we need three or four wins. We want to try and go for five wins and then we might still have a chance of not going through play-offs.

“The first thing we have to do is make sure we secure a play-off place and then take whatever else follows.”