Bernard McNally: Town troops need to rally behind Micky Mellon

The hostility and boos are a big talking point with Shrewsbury Town at the moment and I've experienced it.

But Micky Mellon's has a lot of experience and he's got broad shoulders. One thing he'll depend on is the reaction of his players to help him at this time.

There's no doubt the players like Micky, you can tell, and they have a chance to use this difficult time to rally and get everybody together.

They say 'backs against the wall', 'we're entrenched', 'let's keep ourselves together'.

Micky's got to keep that type of mentality, telling the players that we're all in this together.

He could be telling them that 'I put my trust in you and brought you to this club, a big club with history and tradition, now I need your help to repay me'.

That can hopefully help Town turn the corner. I know it's a big corner at the moment – but I still think he's got enough in the players there to get out of trouble.

There were times when I played at Shrewsbury in the 1980s when it could almost be a sense of relief to go away from home.

Because there is a pressure there, there's no doubt about that. You can feel it when you go into the ground, you can sense that depression around the place.

This is where players have to be mentally strong to overcome that.

It's gone on quite a long time now, players have to step up to the mark – that's the first thing – starting against Swindon on Saturday.

Footballers have to be big enough and strong enough to put those mental pressures aside.

I know that type of thing helped my teams at Shrewsbury and West Brom when we were staying in the divisions.

The fans need something to shout about and that will only come from the players out on the field. They need to go out and grind out a win.

I understand formations and tactics can be confusing for fans and it's a difficult thing until you're in position as a manager.

Micky will obviously want to play what he considers are his best players.

Really, tactics are about opinions, all managers have their favourite systems. When I was managing Telford, I remember we were mid-table and I'd always said I didn't want to play a 3-5-2 – that was my preference.

Then because of injuries we had to go to a 3-5-2, and we went on a 21-game unbeaten run and got promotion at the Bucks Head. So it's funny how things do happen.

If Town were winning it wouldn't be a problem. But the difficulty is when fans don't see results, they always question the negative – 'why this? or why that?'

Managers are paid to pick the system that suits the players best. Whatever shape you've picked, sometimes you've got drop some players that usually wouldn't be dropped.

Micky's shown that with Louis Dodds and Jim O'Brien missing out, but those are big calls when you're near the bottom.