Nick Fenton of Rotherham United and Kelvin Langmead of Shrewsbury Town

One point out of six against two of the division’s top sides doesn’t make good reading, but Town fans have other reason to be optimistic, writes Shrewsbury Town blogger James Pugh.

The games against Rotherham and Bury were meant to show how far Town had come and although we only came away with one point, we proved we are a difficult team to beat.

What the games also showed is that we lack the firepower that can often be the difference in tight games. But with the signing of 35-year-old Jamie Cureton from Norwich we now have more options up front and a player who has a proven record of scoring goals.

With the lack of striking options at his disposal Simpson has had little choice than playing one man up front, with Disley supporting. That has worked well to a degree, but now Simpson needs to be more ambitious and play with two strikers, like we saw against Rotherham.

To achieve automatic promotion we will have to win a large percentage of our remaining games and the only way of doing that is using players who will score goals. I only hope Simpson hasn’t signed Cureton to be an impact player of the bench, but rather someone who will prove a regular partner for Hibbert.

If anyone had to be the match winner for Bury, it had to be Ryan Lowe – the man who had so much talent playing in the blue and amber, but didn’t have the attitude to go with it.

Following Friday’s disappointment, the pressure was really on Town to perform in front of the Sky cameras against Rotherham and in the end they showed their fighting spirit to pick up a creditable 1-1 draw.

A big problem of Town’s this season has been our inability to start quickly well in games, and we saw this again in the past two games. Why is this and what can Simpson do to address it?

Following two successive away game against top opposition, things don’t get any easier for Town as they face Bournemouth at home on Saturday.

Bournemouth currently occupy the third automatic promotion place and have won an impressive eight league games on the road this season.

However, Town will need to forget about the stats come the game as they look to get their promotion campaign back on track with a much-needed win.

Whether our season will end in agony or ecstasy will depend on how well our new signings Cureton and van den Broek adapt. Let’s hope it’s ecstasy and we will see Cureton score the goals and the Dutchman create the chances to send us into the automatic promotion spots.

Who do fans think will make the bigger impact?