Shrewsbury Town boss Paul Hurst mulling over left-back dilemma
Boss Paul Hurst is still mulling over how his defence will shape up for the foreseeable future in Junior Brown’s absence.
Town lost their first-choice left-back for the rest of the season after he suffered cruciate knee ligament damage in the win over Fleetwood earlier this month.
It led to a reshuffle for the defeat at Peterborough, which ended Town’s remarkable 15-game unbeaten run, with right-sided defender Joe Riley switching to the opposite flank.
Another contender for the position on a more regular basis is centre-half Omar Beckles – who has featured at left-back previously. Beckles came in for an ill Mat Sadler at the ABAX Stadium last weekend.
“It’s not easy when you haven’t been playing to come into a game of that tempo,” said Hurst.
“There are certainly no excuses on my part, there are some good players to have come into the team, the only thing we obviously lose is that natural balance but there’s nothing we can do about that.
“At times it might be the other way around with Omar there. If Sads comes back into contention, Omar can slide there. That’s down to me to try and find what’s the best solution at the time.
“I’m confident in the lads’ ability, I said to them at the hotel (before) and the ground that they’re good enough to be in the team.
"They’re unfortunate not to be because of other people’s form.
“Joe only came off because we went more attacking, it wasn’t performance-related, him and (James) Bolton. And Omar I thought did very well slotting in there.”
The boss insisted that a first league defeat of the current campaign was not simply down to the absence of two of his regular back four.
“I feel for those two in a sense that we’ve lost a game and people might go ‘we miss Sads and we miss Junior’,” he added.
“No disrespect to those two lads that have been absolutely fantastic for us, but it wasn’t down to that that we lost the game.”
Hurst is confident his charges can recover from the set-back of tasting defeat for the first time.
He said: “I said in pre-season it’ll be a better place to be and 100 per cent that’s true.
“Unless we fall off the side of a cliff it’s going to be a better place to be and we’re going to have a better finish – I’m confident on that one.”
