Paul Hurst’s Shrewsbury numbers add up to success

Saturday’s 1-1 draw at the Banks’s Stadium brought up Paul Hurst’s half-century as Shrewsbury manager. And what a ride, full of twists and turns, it has been.

Town fans can’t believe their eyes when they look at the current League One standings. Now, midway through October, the big, fat ‘0’ under the losses column next to Shrewsbury’s name is scarcely believable.

This is, remember, the team that many experts (and bookies) tipped as the favourites to go down.

My League One peers did the same. Each season, club correspondents in the third tier up and down the country send around an email with their promotion and relegation tips.

Shrewsbury were tipped for the drop by 19 of the 23 reporters (excluding myself). One of the reporters turned that into a story. That now finds itself on the wall at Shrewsbury’s training base – egging the players on to prove the so-called experts wrong.

Shrews fans are a largely glass-half-empty bunch, they don’t carry the grandest expectations. They expect the simple things, the basics, a team with a bit of passion and oomph.

Unbeaten Shrewsbury have raised more than a few eyebrows at this point. They’ve caught the attention of the nation – and rightly so.

The statistics are impressive. Twenty-four wins, 12 draws and 14 defeats from 50 games gives a win per cent ratio of exactly 48 per cent. A staggering sum given the club were rock-bottom and heading only one way when Hurst took charge just under a year ago.

Over a League One season of 46 games, his record in all competitions would earn Town around 77 points.

That has been enough to make the play-offs in this division in 12 of the last 13 seasons. Of his 50 games in charge, 43 have been in the league. Hurst’s league record reads 20 wins, 11 draws and 12 defeats, giving a win ratio of 46.5 per cent.

Hurst’s overall win percentage, just shy of the 49.45 from his 182 games with Grimsby, leaves the boss sitting pretty compared to his League One rivals.

Eighteen, including Hurst, have managed for 50 games or more. Only Scunthorpe’s Graham Alexander’s 51.9 per cent is above Hurst.

Not bad for someone not fortunate enough to play football in the Premier League and enjoy a management fast-pass ticket, someone who has worked their way up from the part-time game.

Stats can often be misleading but those make for mighty impressive reading. Last season was far from plain-sailing. Town had stutters – in November, over Christmas and notably in March with four defeats on the bounce. Hurst, Chris Doig and the squad were pushed to their very limit.

Ask Town fans to pick out a couple of highlights from his reign and few would surely omit last season’s penultimate game against Southend.

The challenge ahead looked difficult. A final day trip to Oxford was daunting and Town had won just one from nine. It was a tough time to endure a dip in form.

But Junior Brown’s stooping header will live long in the memory. It helped to send rivals Port Vale down and Town fans burst onto the field at full-time to celebrate an unlikely achievement.

There were other highlights. A first league win, at home to Oxford, was celebrated almost like a final as Shaun Whalley sealed a 2-0 success in the 98th minute.

Tyler Roberts and Freddie Ladapo stole the show on a rainy afternoon at title-chasing Scunthorpe, where Ladapo struck the only goal in a win.

A midweek Meadow success against Charlton was another. Town’s 4-3 win against the former top flight visitors had hat-trick hero Ricky Holmes on the losing side. The hosts scored some fine goals that night as they cut the Addicks to ribbons.

It was a rare occasion for Shrews to ship three, albeit all were phenomenal strikes.

Remarkably, that was one of just three occasions Town have shipped three or more goals in 50 games under Hurst. Oddly enough, the other two occasions were at Fleetwood.

It is clear Hurst’s first task was to organise. To stop the rot and plug the gaping gaps in Town’s defence. His well-drilled sessions instilled some discipline in Town’s ranks.

After stability came ability.

A sprinkling of attacking talent arrived in January and Town began troubling teams at the other end of the pitch. For a period in the early stages of the year, they were the division’s form team.

The rest is history as they eventually secured their safety. Now, fast-forward a stunning few months and the turnaround is amazing. Not many believed in Shrewsbury before a ball was kicked. But they believed in themselves.

They believed in the manager’s methods, his messages, his style of play and his systems. Hurst showed plenty of his old-fashioned mantra with a standard 4-4-2 formation last season, but this season his squad and team have evolved.

He has designed a new formation, including more central midfielders, and his talented additions are making for some stylish play. At times this season Town have taken the breath away, against far more expensively-assembled opponents.

The rest of the top five may have more goals than Shrewsbury – as it took Hurst’s men until two Saturday’s ago to win by more than one goal.

But Town have plenty of attacking talent and an in-form forward, Stefan Payne, scoring goals, and others have chipped in while their mean defence is proving stubborn.

The form may be fast-tracking Town towards a top six push but do not let the former Ilkeston, Boston and Grimsby chief hear you utter the P-word.

Hurst’s first target is 50 points. At this rate he may well get there sooner than he imagined.