Shrewsbury Town debrief: Where do Salop go from here?

They are rock bottom of the League One table, they are 14 points from safety, and relegation has all but been confirmed. 

The worst part about it all is that it is only the middle of March - there are still nine League One fixtures left to endure.  

The players are playing for their futures

Head coach Gareth Ainsworth believes there is plenty still to play for. He wants to win some football matches and improve the mood around the Croud Meadow. 

One of the things the boss has made clear is the players are effectively on trial for next season. He said post-match he is not the kind of manager who will rant and rave to his team in the dressing room. 

How he views his players will become clear at the end of the campaign when decisions are made over their futures and where they will play their football next season. 

Salop have 13 members of their squad under contract for the 2025/26 campaign, including Roland Idowu and Max Mata, who are not currently at the club as they are on loan elsewhere. 

​The takeover is an added complication to this, as Shrewsbury will not know where they are with their budget yet. 

Current form is an eyesore 

At one stage during Shrewsbury’s defeat to Bolton, when they led 1-0 thanks to Vadaine Oliver’s first goal in a Town shirt, with Peterborough losing, they were level on points with Posh. 

That meant they only remained in the bottom four on goal difference. Back then, they still had every chance of surviving. 

They went on to lose that game against Bolton, and since that day, they have lost five out of their last six. It is amazing how, in such a short space of time, they have gone from being right in and amongst it, to being completely out of it. 

In the last six games, they have scored just once, and frankly, that is nowhere near good enough. One or two things have gone against them, but this has been a terrible run, and they must do better between now and the end of the campaign. 

They deserve to be where they are

When you are bottom of the table after this many games - you deserve to be there. Over the course of the season, under two different managers, Salop have failed to show up consistently, and that is what has left them in this position. 

They have shown glimpses. But the EFL is demanding. It requires players to turn up week in and week out, and Town just have not done that. Fans are right to be frustrated. They might have one of the lowest budgets in the league, but despite that, you can still do better than what they have produced. 

They had improved under Ainsworth, but in recent weeks, it appears they have regressed.  

Results against Birmingham City and Wrexham are puzzling. They make it even harder to understand. The struggles have come against those sides in close proximity to them when the pressure is on.