Boss Graham Turner has ordered Shrewsbury Town to forget about Rotherham’s poor form, insisting: “We must put our own house in order.”

Town travel to the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield tomorrow to face a Rotherham side who have lost five consecutive games in all competitions and dropped into the bottom half of the League Two table.

But Turner insists they should be respected – and pointed to defeats at Southend and Crawley in Shrewsbury’s last two away games as evidence that his side have problems of their own.

“Rotherham had a very good start to the season and they have got some useful players, particularly in forward positions,” said Turner.

“It has surprised me that they have lost five successive matches – but it is a dangerous time to be playing them because they will want to put it right.

“We have to put our own form right – we have had the disappointment of losing at Crawley and Southend, and particularly how we played in the first half of those games.”

Despite those defeats Town are still fifth, but Turner admitted: “We have let in far too many goals so we have worked on that during the week and hope to be a lot tighter at the back tomorrow.”

Turner has also admitted defeat in his bid to strengthen the squad this week, conceding that a hoped-for loan signing was now unlikely to be completed.

“We have been working hard to bring someone in this week but at this point it doesn’t look like it is going to materialise in time for tomorrow,” he said.

“We don’t just want to bring in squad players, we want to bring in people who will strengthen us and it has not been easy to meet that criteria.

“We’ve had a prime target that we have been after for several days now – but it looks like that is not going to happen.”

By Chris Hudson