Things to work on for Shrewsbury Town
Shrewsbury Town boss Micky Mellon admitted yesterday's defeat to Hibernian has left him with things to work on as the big kick-off approaches.
Town's 4-1 reversal to the Scottish Cup holders in their final pre-season clash played out similarly to their first summer encounter with Cardiff City.
That day, the Welsh outfit lined up with three at the back and won by scoring four times, just as Hibs did yesterday.
Despite training sessions where Mellon's charges were trying to find ways around that system, Town came unstuck, conceding twice inside six minutes.
Mellon, whose side host MK Dons on Saturday, said: "You've not got to over-react to it but you've got to react to it.
"We will work on things this week. There were things that maybe we thought that we were getting right that we will speak about.
"We kind of struggled against a back three again, same as Cardiff and I thought we sorted that so, we'll be able to look at them and work on them another day."
Town were forced to leave out Antoni Sarcevic – a summer signing from Fleetwood – as the midfielder had not trained due to a sore hip.
Eighteen-year-old academy graduate Ethan Jones was Town's only substitution as the youngster.
He struck his first senior goal against Birmingham City during an impressive breakthrough summer and caught the eye.
But there was no place in Salop's match-day squad for striker Tyrone Barnett and midfielder Richie Wellens.
Mellon added: "We just wanted to try and get people through 90 minutes, which I thought was important.
"That's why we let it run. For a lot of them, that's their first 90 minutes so we were always going to let it run like that.
"The bench was not massively important to us in terms of tactically or anything like that.
"I thought it was more important to get the group 90 minutes."
With Sarcevic's injury providing opportunities for others to have game-time and fellow newcomer Adam El-Abd still searching for full fitness.
Mellon admitted that the team for MK Dons will need some thought. He said: "There's a long week ahead, you can never really settle on anything.
"(We'll) Get a few players not involved against Hibs fit and have a look at it again during the week."
