Goalkeeper Chris Neal has praised Shrewsbury Town boss Paul Simpson for the way he has re-focused his team following their shock FA Cup exit to Staines.

Town host Torquay United in League Two tomorrow as they look to maintain their push for a play-off place.

And Neal, 24, insists that is what their sole focus is on, having had clear-the-air talks earlier in the week to put the Staines debacle to bed.

“We’ve been working hard this week trying not to look backwards and concentrating on getting a league run going instead,” he said.

“We had a bit of a meeting after the game on Saturday, we were in the changing room for an hour afterwards discussing what went wrong.

“Monday was pretty much the same, but we’ve been looking forwards in training every day since then.

“The gaffer goes about it in a great way – the lads were given the chance to have their own input and say what they thought.”

Torquay have been something of a bogey team for Shrewsbury in recent years, winning three of their last four visits to the old Gay Meadow.

But this will be their first trip to the Prostar Stadium, having won promotion back from the Conference last season via the play-offs.

They have not enjoyed the best of starts to the League Two campaign, but have shown signs of improvement in recent weeks.

The Devon side have gone six league games unbeaten – though that included a run of five consecutive draws before they beat Northampton 2-0 at Plainmoor a fortnight ago.

They also won 3-1 against Cheltenham last week to book their place in the second round of the FA Cup.

Keeper Neal is aware of their current form and insists their lowly present position in the table should have little bearing on the game.

“There’s not a massive amount of difference between the top teams and the bottom ones, and I’m sure this is going to be another tough game for us,” he added.

“They’ve been getting a bit of a run going and they’re going to want to come here and beat us.

“But we’ll be ready for that and we will be concentrating on starting a good run of results ourselves.

“Everyone was on a bit of a downer after last Saturday, but we’re still seventh in the league and not many points off the top.

“We’ve definitely got to be looking at pushing for the play-offs, if not automatic promotion.”