Blog: Goodbye Luke Rodgers for Shrewsbury

In the predicament we are in there is often no room for sentimentality but the return of Rodgers in November gave the whole club a renewed sense of optimism.

For the younger generation like me who had seen Rodgers play when we were children, it was a great opportunity to see a childhood hero wearing blue and amber again.

But Rodgers didn't arrive purely on the basis of selling shirts and cheering fans up. He arrived with the intention to turn our form around and give us that much searched for experience up front.

Luke only managed to net one goal in his brief stay at the club and, while some fans may have been disappointed with his return, I feel he did what he came hear to do.

As a League One club, we shouldn't be relying on old faces to get us out of trouble, we should have the players there in the first place and have someone like Luke has an option if and when he is needed.

This brings me onto my next point, with Rodgers having now left the Greenhous Meadow and Chris Porter being sent back to his parent club Sheffield United, what options do we have up front?

If Tom Eaves or Marvin Morgan were to tweak their hamstring or pick up an even bigger injury we do have Tom Bradshaw and Ryan Doble available.

Howeverm these two have not seen much first team action this year for one reason or another and fans would fear that they don't have the experience necessary to fight a relegation battle.

So should we be expecting a new arrival in the coming days? I would like to think so.

We have seven games left this season, with arguably our biggest game so far coming up against Oldham on Saturday so it's important for us to be as well-equipped as we can possibly be.

A defeat this Saturday would send us further down the much-dreaded creek and we really don't want to be heading down there without a paddle.

A striker with a relative degree of experience would certainly help get over the finish line and grab us some goals as the season draws to an end.

So I would like to thank Luke Rodgers, for not only helping out the squad, but for providing some nostalgia and joy to a season which has not seen much happiness among our fans.

I would also like to wish him all the best for the future. For our future, fingers crossed we see a striker arrive soon.

I'm probably be expecting a lot of the club to have one in before Saturday, but I would like to think we have some sort of back-up in place.