Shrewsbury boss Sam Ricketts: Elusive victory is not far away

Injury-hit Town play their 11th fixture of a busy 39-day period against Accrington Stanley tonight with a return to winning ways on the agenda.

And the visit of 17th-placed Stanley, one place below Ricketts’ men in League One, is a chance for a first league win in nine for Town.

The boss insists the performances have been there from his weary squad.

Asked if he had seen enough improvements in performances, Ricketts said: “Not just in those (recent) performances, but performances in general. I know we’ve not won for a while but we’ve not been beat threes or fours, we’ve been in every game.

“Maybe we should have snuck two or three wins from that run, we just haven’t done so. We have to keep going.

“We go through spells like this but I don’t think it’s abnormal or unusual for us to be where we are. We have to respect where we’re at or where we’re trying to get to.”

Ricketts added: “There’s always things to improve on, the same as when we had an unbelievable run before Christmas in beating an awful lot of good sides.

“We still said we wanted to improve and get better. We’re never satisfied.”

Ricketts admitted the possibility of continuing the recent theme of several changes to his matchday XI given the number of games in quick succession.

Shaun Whalley (hamstring) is three weeks away from a return while skipper Ollie Norburn’s knee problem is not healing as quickly as forecast.

Fellow midfielder Brad Walker missed the 1-1 draw with MK Dons on Saturday with a hamstring problem and won’t feature tonight, while new signing Josh Vela will not be risked.

Ricketts added: “When you’re getting in 15 shots per game you are having plenty of shots, we just need to convert a couple.

“We’ve had really good chances, we’re not able to kill the game off.”

Former Shrewsbury striker Steve Morison has joined Cardiff City as the club’s new lead under-23s coach.

The 36-year-old, signed by Town from Millwall last summer, left the Meadow in October as he announced his retirement from playing.

The UEFA Pro Licensed coach and ex-Wales international has since spent time at Northampton and Millwall’s academies but has switched to the Welsh capital.