Former players came back to haunt Town in a week where our promotion chances were hit hard, writes Shrewsbury Town blogger James Pugh.

One league win in nine tells its own story, but amazingly we are still only five points off the automatic promotion places.

The problem is the teams around us have got games in hand and the teams below us are catching up.

Consecutive away defeats to Oxford and Bury made it a terrible week for Town fans, made worse by the fact that we were undone by goals from former players Hall, Constable and Lowe.

More frustratingly is that Lowe and Constable have blossomed since leaving Town  – which begs the question: should we have let them go?

Quite simply our form is poor and not good enough if we want promotion.

It’s time to recall Harrold and Robinson and bring in some new defenders because not being able to keep clean sheets is hitting us hard.

Holden isn’t good enough and we need a quality centre half to complement Sharps and Cansdell-Sherriff.

Quite a bit has been said about tiredness taking its toll on the players.

The truth is that we are no worse off than the other sides and we have got a big enough squad to cope with the demands of League Two.

Following two disappointing results on the road, Town return to the comfort of their home with a game against struggling Burton on Tuesday.

Burton are only one point from the bottom and have only won once away in the league all season, so this has got to be seen as a must win game.

Town then return to the road with a game against mid-table Southend on Saturday who we drew at home with back in November.

January has proved to be an awful month for Town and as they say things can only get better!

If they don’t then we can kiss goodbye to promotion.