Rochdale sacking makes it tough for Shrewsbury to prepare – Sam Ricketts
Sam Ricketts admits his Shrewsbury side are heading into the unknown after Rochdale sacked Keith Hill this week.
The Dale are under the temporary guidance of caretaker duo Brian Barry-Murphy and Tony Ellis after Hill, who had been in charge six years, was relieved of his duties.
Ricketts feels the change of management makes Town’s attempts to second guess Rochdale’s plans more difficult.
“I’m not sure now they’ve changed manager. It puts everything in the air,” said the Shrews boss.
“You don’t know if it’s a continuation of what was happening or if someone puts their stamp on it. We’ll have to wait and see.
“They’re free-flowing, they score and concede a few. It would suggest an open game.
“When it happened here (John Askey sacking) there was an upturn in results. There’s nothing we can do about it, we’ll have to assess on the day.
“It’s an unknown in terms of what we’re going to face but what we do know is we’ll go there with our game plan. When we do that we look a very good team who are learning how to control a game.”
Town are 17th, five places and six points above tomorrow’s hosts, who have conceded a league high of 74 goals – 14 more than any other side.
“They’re a side that are very open. If you don’t punish them then you can get hurt because they’re very attacking-minded,” said Ricketts.
