Comment: Shrewsbury struggle for reinforcements on deadline day

While the team has made some small improvements over the course of the last week, on the whole, the start to this season has been thoroughly miserable.

After being relegated from League One, few could have predicted how challenging the opening month of the campaign would be for Salop.

They have let too many goals in, not scored enough and are still waiting for their first league win.

The transfer window was the hope that Shrewsbury could improve their squad in the final hours of the window, giving the players in the building and the supporters in the stands a much-needed morale boost.

But instead, aside from the arrival of Bradley Ihionvien, it was a deadline day that focused more on getting bodies out of the door than it did on getting players in.

Alex Gilliead headed out to Carlisle on loan, Toby Savin signed a one-year contract with Wigan and Max Mata’s contract was terminated by mutual consent with the 25-year-old keen on returning to his homeland of New Zealand.  

Ihionvien was seen as a player Peterborough United took a gamble on a couple of years back when they signed him from Colchester. They have a history of spotting talented youngsters.

He doesn’t look like a bad addition, but the truth is, it feels like Town needed so much more.

The majority of their recruitment was done in the early part of the season with the defensive signings of Sam Stubbs, Tom Anderson and Will Boyle.

Other senior players have joined over the course of the summer like Sam Clucas and Tom Sang.

But on the whole, the group have not been able to hit the ground running in the early part of the campaign.

There is still so much time left in the season for them to turn it around, but Salop have felt like they are a ship heading in the wrong direction for a long time. Michael Appleton has one hell of a job on his hands to change that.

You can understand the outgoings. They have ended up with an overinflated squad, and in order for some of the players to get the minutes they want, they have had to go elsewhere.

The interesting one will be what happens with George Nurse’s future. Appleton had made it clear he does not want Nurse. The left-sided defender was left out of the squad against Accrington completely, despite the club only being able to field six substitutes. They are going to have to reintegrate the former Bristol City man.

Earlier in the season, I wrote that it was essential for Town to have a good start to the season, otherwise the wounds from their recent distressing past would reopen.

That is exactly what has happened. They have not performed on the pitch and the goodwill from making some eye-catching early summer additions has disappeared.

Late business in the transfer market has not been Town’s saviour either. The only hope to get the fans back on side is that the period of exclusivity, which was said to be close a couple of weeks ago, leads somewhere.