Bernard McNally: Shrewsbury Town's home struggle must be thing of the past

The mental side of football is huge and you realise that the more you stay in the game.

The way Shrewsbury's home form went last season has to be forgotten now and they need to start afresh at Greenhous Meadow.

They need to go out in front of their own fans against Scunthorpe with a lot of positivity – they may be playing a team flying high, second in the league, but there is no reason why they can't pull off a great result for themselves.

They have to believe that they can go and do something. Like in the cup competitions, and Micky Mellon's teams have a lot of experience of beating sides above them over the last couple of years, it is that sort of belief, 'this is a one-off' and if they treat it a bit like a cup game then they can get into a great position.

Town have already got a good home win this season over Chesterfield but followed that with a defeat.

Salop just need that positive result at home that will almost make last year disappear.

The tough thing is trying to manage fans' expectations.

Perhaps – after speaking with fans that I know – there was a bit of a negative mindset at home.

Sometimes it can reflect on a future team. But I am hoping that the players will respond to Micky and go out and give it their best

shot.

It was great to see the away fans at Bury giving the team a standing ovation after defeat.

The players gave 100 per cent, everybody was disappointed but it showed that they were pleased enough with what they saw.

The fans have an expectation and I think if Shrewsbury can get a few players back from injury, the squad will be stronger and be more competitive.

Who knows – this could be the season when they set the stall out at home and become a tough team to beat, Micky will want that.

The good thing for the boss is that he has players to come back into the fold. Shaun Whalley, Junior Brown, Jim O'Brien, AJ Leitch-Smith and Ian Black coming back in will add a lot of strength, so I see all of that as

positive.

The boss will be getting the players upbeat this week, telling them they are capable of moving forward, that they are a good side and that they can take a lot of encouragement, from the second half in particular.

Micky admitted he did not want to take El-Abd off at half-time against Bury because he did not want to make his team weaker.

I would be the same as a manager. El-Abd rolls his sleeves up and leads from the

front.

I am with the boss. I would want to keep my captain on, particularly such a influential captain, it's very, very easy to look at it in hindsight afterwards but you want your best players on the pitch and that is what Micky did – I would have done the same.

I would have tried to tell him to keep his head, but it was not a malicious tackle.

He's been ran into and that has got the second booking.