Michael Coulson of Grimsby Town and Terry Dunfield of Shrewsbury Town

If Town continue to shoot themselves in the foot by giving away penalties and losing to struggling sides, then we can kiss our promotion hopes goodbye, writes Shrewsbury Town blogger James Pugh.

When former Town loan player Jamie Devitt said last week that his current Grimsby team play better football than we do ahead of Saturday’s game – I laughed it off and thought ‘I know which end of the table I would rather be’.

Well his comments certainly came back to haunt us and he is the one laughing now after second to bottom Grimsby thrashed us 3-0, which started when we conceded a dubious penalty – something which we have done a lot of recently.

Credit to Grimsby, they are fighting for their lives at the bottom of the division and showed a lot of hunger during the game. But stats don’t lie as they had only won three league games all season, not won in 25 games and had one of the worst goalscoring records in the league – until they faced us, that is.

We have lost and drawn games to struggling sides throughout the season and if it continues, then we will not get promoted. I don’t know what the reasons are for why this has happened and I doubt Simpson knows, otherwise it would have surely stopped by now.

What do fans think? Maybe we haven’t got mentally strong players who can’t handle the pressure of being tagged ‘favourites’ ahead of games.

If this is the reason then the player’s attitudes will have to change as teams around us continue to catch us up in terms of games played and points earned.

Some fans have already been getting on the back of loan signing Jamie Cureton, who has had an indifferent start to his Town career.

To these people I would say – give the guy a chance and judge him at the end of the season. Don’t forget he hasn’t featured for Norwich much this season and is bound to be short of match fitness.

Changing the subject from Town’s current crop of players – what does former fans favourite Joe Hart have to do to play for England? I couldn’t believe he didn’t figure against Egypt last week after having a great season for Birmingham and England’s other goalkeeping options being so poor.

If Town are to bounce back strongly from Saturday’s embarrassment, then they will have to overcome the ultimate test in facing league leaders Rochdale at the Prostar this weekend.

Rochdale lie six points clear at the top and showed their class and our inferiority when they thrashed us 4-0 in the reverse fixture in December.