Carlton Morris is up for Shrewsbury Town frontline battle

The Town striking pair have been among the goals in the early weeks of their blue and amber stints, as Norwich City loanee Morris made it two goals in five starts with his ferocious finish at Gillingham last weekend.

While boss Paul Hurst has stuck with 21-year-old Morris as a starter at the head of his current favoured 4-1-4-1 set-up, Payne – signed on an undisclosed fee from Barnsley towards the end of the transfer window – has so far netted three in four Town appearances.

Shrewsbury fans were already familiar with Payne, who joined on-loan in January, after he scored twice in 12 games following an unfortunate injury on his first Town debut.

But Morris welcomed the intense competition. He said: "It's good for him to be doing well – it keeps me on my toes!

"We've built a really good squad here and everyone in the stating team is just trying to keep their shirt.

"Stef's an excellent player, you could tell as soon as he got here he had pedigree. I've got to keep performing and playing well.

"Coming from Barnsley he's going o be a good player. It's excellent to have such a player of his quality as an impact club to see games out and get goals as he has done.

"We'll both continue to do so."

Morris is seasoned to a loan spell from Carrow Road. He has previously been away to Oxford, York, Hamilton Academical and Rotherham.

But only the Scotland move, where the front man spent a season and scored eight times in 33 outings, saw Morris spend an entire campaign away from his parent side.

The Cambridge-born hotshot added: "There's more than just football to a loan. You're up and moving destinations all over the country and Scotland.

"Football-wise this is a good loan, I've got myself in early in pre-season and really integrated with the squad. It's going well.

"I've been to Oxford, York and Rotherham but those were short-term. I felt like I couldn't really sink my teeth into those, but with Hamilton it was similar to this one.

"I got into the squad early, got in the team like here and hopefully I'll be able to stay in the team and keep fit."