Town put a disappointing pre-season campaign behind them with an impressive opening day victory over newly-promoted Burton Albion, writes Shrewsbury Town blogger James Pugh.

After losing key players during the summer and poor performances against West Brom, Telford, Leicester and to a lesser extent Ellesmere Rangers, Town fans had every right to be worried ahead of Saturday’s game.

But Simpson promised his side would be ready and they certainly didn’t disappoint after comfortably winning 3-1 to get our season off to a brilliant start.

The pre-season has seen much change at the club, with lots of last year’s play-off losing squad leaving, including Holt and Davies and a few new faces coming in.

Up until the beginning of last week I was really panicking about the strength and numbers in our squad, and wasn’t overly convinced by the singings of Joss Labadie, Nathan Elder and Kris Bright.

However, along with Jake Robinson, Craig Disley, Dean Holden, and Chris Neal I thought the new men had impressive games and showed enough to suggest they will be successful in moving the club forward.

What was most noticeable about Town was we seemed to play more like a team last season and took the chances that came our way well.

Other positives in the game included new players Robinson and Labadie getting off the mark early in their Town careers and a special mention for Dave Hibbert who only played because Bright didn’t have international clearance to play.

A lot of Town fans are undecided on Hibbert, but Simpson has kept faith with him and after last season’s injury nightmare I thought he worked his socks off and fully deserved his goal. If he keeps up that kind of form then Simpson will have a real selection headache on his hands.

Without be too negative, it is still very early days and one win against a newly-promoted side is nothing to get too excited about, but it is important to start the season well and if we can repeat the same kind of performances home and away, come the end of the season we should be there or thereabouts.

After narrowly missing out on promotion last season, achieving it this season has got to be the target. If we fail to do so again, big questions will be asked of Simpson.

Although we don’t look like we have got players who will score us 25+ goals, we look more physical with the signings of Bright and Elder and expect the goals to be shared around a bit more so we aren’t relying on one player. Elder was a popular figure at Brentford who reached double figures last season and I think he will link up well with the likes of Robinson and Bright.

I don’t think Simpson is finished yet in the transfer market and would not be surprised if he brings in another defender and wide man. Watch this space!