Shrewsbury Town's Alex Rodman to put family links aside for Aston Villa visit
Boyhood Aston Villa fan Alex Rodman knows he will have to put family ties to one side as the Championship side come to town tomorrow.
The Shrewsbury Town winger, who is based in Birmingham, has strong family connections to Steve Bruce's Championship outfit and has supported Villa all his life.
And Rodman, who scored a belter in Town's 2-1 defeat at Brackley on Tuesday, knows Villa will prove a tough test for Paul Hurst's side.
He reckons that Shrewsbury will see a lot less of the ball than they did in the Brackley defeat, at a fixture that is expected to host at least 3,500 travelling Villa fans in the re-branded Montgomery Waters Meadow.
Rodman told ShrewsWeb: "There are strong family connections, so I am looking forward to tomorrow.
"Obviously, they are going to be a good team and it’s going to be tough.
“We probably won’t see a lot of the ball, so it will be a good fitness session, but we will be looking to put a lot of the hard work over the last few weeks into practice on the weekend.
“They are only a league above us.
“They are one of the better teams in the Championship and hopefully they will be winning it this year, but it’s a fitness thing. It’s about working on your shape and being in the right positions tactically.
“They are better players and some of their boys earn ridiculous amounts of money there and they are there for a reason, so it will be a good test of us tactically and fitness wise.
“If you can do the business against players like that and teams like that then it stands you in good stead for the League One season.”
Rodman was one of Hurst's first signing as Town boss.
He scored once last season in blue and amber and featured heavily as Town secured League One survival.
The ex-Notts County man made the trip, along with his team-mates, to Town's warm-weather training camp in Portugal last week, where players had up to three sessions per day.
“It’s been very tough," he admitted.
“Last week in Portugal was very tough. It was triple sessions every day and even the recovery day was a double session, so that tells you everything about it.
“It was very hard in the heat, but we got what we wanted to out of it in terms of the fitness side of things and the miles in the legs.
“We got a lot of team bonding and the closeness out of it as well, which was the main objective, so it was a win-win all week.
“The hard work in the heat made it even tougher and I feel better for it. It’s about getting that load through our legs and hammering us until our bodies adapt to it and until we reach the levels we want to be at for the season.”
