Paul Hurst mulls over Shrewsbury midfield options
Boss Paul Hurst has thrown down the gauntlet to his midfield options as Shrewsbury head to Bury without suspended skipper Abu Ogogo.
The all-action midfielder begins his three-game ban tonight after Town decided against appealing the red card he was shown in Saturday’s win at Rotherham.
Hurst was mulling over ideas to replace Ogogo, including whether or not to stick with the three-man central midfield option that has served the leaders well this season. The boss, who has Bryn Morris, Ebou Adams and Louis Dodds to call on as potential replacements, insisted there was no like-for-like replacement for Ogogo – but whoever gets the chance tonight can stake a first-team claim.
“Whoever goes in there, I won’t ask them to be Abs,” said Hurst.
“They’ve got to be themselves. That might bring a different strength to the team or leave us weaker in a different way.
“But what we can’t have is just 11 players and then 11 clones in back-up ready to go out there.
“There’s a few ways I can go with different options. Hand on heart, I haven’t decided that. I’ll give it some thought and whoever gets the nod it’s down to them to take the opportunity.
“These are big games. What’s better than coming into a team doing well? You want whoever gets the chance to do themselves justice and well for the team.”
Morris, who agreed a new permanent deal in the summer after originally joining in January, has not started a league game since the opening day. He had a spell out after undergoing knee surgery.
Hurst said: “I think Bryn’s very good on the ball. He reads the game extremely well for a young player.
“In the first game of the season we played him as that holding midfield player.
“He’s got a lot of quality and is a very fit lad. Against Walsall in the Checkatrade, to be fair, he’d just played 90 minutes on the Saturday (against Aldershot in the FA Cup) and it caught up with him a little bit.
“I was still glad I played him, I think he needed it.”
