Shrewsbury Town boss Paul Hurst: We need to believe

Town went back on top with Tuesday’s 2-1 victory at Fleetwood and now host in-form Rotherham on Saturday.

But in a week where the top three have all fallen to surprise defeats, Hurst admits maintaining belief is harder for him than his counterparts at Wigan and Blackburn.

“Because we’re in a position nobody expected – ourselves included – every time there is a blip or a result that we don’t like, I think it does have a bit more of an impact in terms of belief than it would a Wigan or a Blackburn who might shrug it off and think ‘we’ll be alright, we’ll win the next one’,” he said.

“Maybe we’ve got a group that might worry slightly more.

"But we’ll keep trying our best to hang in there at the right end of the table and every game that goes by we give ourselves a chance of doing that.

“We move on to Saturday. It might be a role reversal now, maybe we’re going to be good away from home and only pretty good at home.

“Sometimes you can play teams at better times than others and at the minute they’re not one of the teams you would pick to face. But we have to try to rise to the challenge.

"I’m sure at the minute they feel pretty invincible but we have to deal with that.”

Nathan Thomas came off the bench to inspire the victory over the Cod Army, setting up the first and scoring the second.

But Hurst believes there is even more to come from the Sheffield United loanee, a player he tried to sign several times before landing him last month.

“He’s got to adapt to the way we want him to play but I want to make him a better player,” added Hurst.

“He’s a confident lad. He’s one of those that if he gets tackled four or five times in a row it won’t make a blind bit of difference to him.

“I want to give those type of players a little bit of freedom.

"I know he has qualities that enhances the squad and brings competition. Sometimes players don’t like it but it is what we need.”