As Town witnessed a mixed start to their pre-season programme, another one of last year’s squad left to move north of the border, writes Shrewsbury Town blogger James Pugh.

Chris Humphrey followed in Ben Davies’ footsteps and turned his back on Town as he made a surprising move to Scottish Premier League side Motherwell.

There is no doubting his potential, but he is hardly going to fulfil it in Scotland and would have been better developing as a player at Town for at least another two years.

Although he was inconsistent he showed plenty of signs of what a good player he could become and offered the team something different – genuine pace.

Town started their pre-season campaign with a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Northwhich. Considering it was their first game, Simpson can be pleased with his team’s efforts and it was good to see the new players fitting in well. Goalkeeper Chris Neal particular stood out and it was good for striker Jake Robinson get off the mark for his new club early.

Unfortunately Town could not follow up their victory over Northwhich with a win over local rivals Telford in the Shropshire Senior Cup Final, after drawing 1-1 and losing 4-1 on penalties.

Having only played a few days before, the players looked well off the pace and credit to Telford they showed more urgency and looked more up for it than we did. Although only a pre-season game it’s never nice to lose to our local rivals and the last thing we want is to give them any ammunition to put one over on us.

It was a big blow to hear that defender Michael Jackson will be out for up to three months due to injury.

Jackson was an instant hit with the fans when he joined and was a major reason why we started so well last season.

We certainly missed him in the second half of the season when we let in a lot of sloppy goals and he will certainly be missed for the first half of the coming campaign.

The danger of signing people in their mid 30s is that they are coming to the end of their careers and one injury can often be career-threatening.

Simpson will need to move quickly to replace Humphrey, whether it is someone on loan or a permanent signing. He also needs to replace Davies, bring in another striker and maybe a temporary replacement for Jackson.

At the moment I am very concerned with the strength in depth of our squad and feel it is weaker than it was at the beginning of last season.

I just hope there is some money left in the pot to bring in some more quality, which appears to be lacking at the moment.

It is hard to be critical of the players in the first couple of pre-season friendlies, but they were certainly need to show big improvements in the next few games to be ready for the big kick off against Burton Albion on August 8.

Next up is a home tie against West Brom on Wednesday and a big improvement will be required if we are to come away with anything from the game.

Playing against better opposition should hopefully inspire the players to raise their games.