Shrewsbury Town: Michael Appleton makes admission on current squad size

It was just last week Salop announced that eight senior players, including Aaron Pierre, Morgan Feeney and Jordan Shipley, had not been offered new terms in Shropshire and would depart this month. 

Town are planning for life in League Two after they were relegated to the fourth tier after a miserable campaign, which saw them finish bottom of the league. 

They did take up the option in Taylor Perry’s contract. The 23-year-old former Wolves midfielder will spend his third year at the Croud Meadow. 

On Friday Shrews confirmed their first signing of the summer transfer window with Tom Anderson, the experienced centre-back who featured heavily in Doncaster's promotion campaign, arrived on a two-year deal. 

And that means Shrews have got 15 players in their squad right now as they begin their League Two rebuild. 

The Salop boss believes that number is not the worst, as needing too many players during the summer can be a thankless task. 

He said: "I mean, I think from my point of view, it's almost a reasonable balance. I think yeah, it's pretty much half the group.

"Listen, if you're having to recruit 15-16 players, then it can be a little bit of a headache and not necessarily healthy.

"I think you want to put yourself in a position where you only need to sign three or four players, but that takes time to do.

"There's a lot of planning for that to happen. You have got to align contracts in terms of how long they are, and that doesn't happen overnight.

"That's a two or three-year process, so maybe by the end of my two years, we will be in a position where, whether it's me or someone else, has to sort of rebuild over that summer.

"But hopefully then, that rebuild may only be two, three or four players."

Salop confirmed on Friday that Jack Loughran, Karsten Cairns, Isaac Godwin and Joe Morris have signed new deals, but Zac Prior, Findlay Starkey-Jones and Luca Whitney have been released.