Shropshire Star

Sam Ricketts hoping for a Shrewsbury Town injury boost

Shrewsbury Town hope to have influential midfield duo Greg Docherty and Josh Laurent back for Saturday’s trip to Peterborough.

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The pair missed last weekend’s 1-1 draw against Burton Albion through injury but boss Sam Ricketts expects both to be ready to aid his midfield injury crisis.

Rangers loanee Docherty has been sidelined with a troublesome eye injury since his cameo from the bench at Bristol Rovers 11 days ago.

Midfield regular Laurent failed a fitness test before the Brewers clash with a suspected ankle injury, but neither players are thought to be long-term concerns.

“I’m hoping that by this week certainly Josh Laurent and Greg Docherty (will be back),” said Ricketts.

“Ryan Haynes is available, so they’ll all be available. Romain (Vincelot) and Dave Edwards won’t be, Dave’s got two more games (of his suspension) to go.

“There are some good players there. At Bristol Rovers Doc came off the bench and was a real handful and threat. He came on and did really well.

“We’re looking forward to getting them back.”

Ricketts explained his decision to use Reice Charles-Cook as substitute goalkeeper against Burton over Derby loanee Jonathan Mitchell was to keep all parties together.

“If you look back the keepers have dovetailed as to who’s on the bench and who isn’t,” added the Town boss.

“Basically I like everyone to feel involved. They’re all in it together. They’ll take it in turns as to who goes on the bench while fighting and pushing Steve (Arnold) for the No.1 shirt.

“Ultimately we’ve now got real good competition for places which everyone needs to be aware of.”

Ricketts reckons results will follow once his side, who moved up a spot to 21st as a consequence of last night’s results, can see out clean sheets.

He continued: “Generally the team have scored goals. There’s only a handful where we haven’t.

“We need to maintain that. We need to keep a clean sheet but we can’t rest on one, there will be times when we need to go score two and three to see the games out.

“We need that to get the wins because, I think, once we get one we’ll snowball into more through the sheer belief and confidence.

“We’ll get players back in as well, we’re missing an awful lot of midfielders. We’ve gone from a light squad, to a really big squad, to a light squad again on Saturday.”