Michael Appleton on Shrewsbury Town’s key tweak to summer recruitment

The Shrews boss said in an interview after Town’s 4-1 defeat at Northampton there was a ‘softness’ to the team that made his ‘skin crawl’. 

Salop were relegated from League One having picked up just 33 points from their 46 games. 

They had three managers over the course of the campaign, who all spoke about the lack of leaders there were within the Shrews squad. 

So far this summer, the club have tried to address that. The experienced duo Tom Anderson and Sam Clucas became the first additions of the window. 

Last week, they announced three more signings with Sam Stubbs, Will Boyle and Tom Sang putting pen to paper on contracts in Shropshire. 

Addressing the team's mentality has been one of the aims during the off-season. 

“What I mentioned in the interview after the Northampton game, it comes from pure frustration,” Appleton said. “At the end of the day, even though I was only at the football club for a short period of time, you like to think the way your team performs on the pitch is a little bit of a reflection of you.

“That doesn't necessarily mean the way you play with the ball, but just your attitude and the way you go about your business. If you're losing in games or you lose games, you do it the right way and make sure the opponents have been in the game, and you've been competitive.

“I felt that was really lacking in the group overall. Myself, Micky (Moore), Tom (Ware), and Rich (O’Donnell) had his input, and the analysts had their input, but it was a key factor that we needed to get. They're not just men, they're big men as well.”