Comment: Meadow staff streamline could be just what Shrewsbury Town need

Social distancing will be easier in the home technical area after Graham Barrow and Jon Pitts left Shrewsbury Town.

Boss Sam Ricketts was honest about wanting to freshen up his coaching staff with a more youthful approach, which he has certainly done now fellow former Premier League star Dean Whitehead, 38, has replaced 66-year-old Barrow as assistant manager.

Town have cut down on numbers from what was a noticeably large coaching team.

As well as Ricketts and his No.2 Barrow – who was with the Welshman at former club Wrexham – there was coach Whitehead, head of performance Pitts, goalkeeper coach Brian Jensen, fitness coach Andy Johnson, physio Jordan Beech and sports therapist Gregg Jones, as well as full-time club scout Luke Fogarty.

It was a big group. No doubt. And perhaps it is no surprise that Ricketts made the decision to streamline numbers this summer.

Town will lose the vast levels of experience that Chester and Wigan legend Barrow brought to the club.

There can’t have been many things the affable old coach had not seen in his hundreds of games in playing and management. Ricketts saw enough in the ex-Wrexham boss to bring him to the Meadow just last summer – which feels like such a long time ago now.

Players were fond of Barrow. This reporter can recall at least a handful of them referencing ‘G’ unprompted when speaking of their development.

Where Ricketts and Whitehead can work as a partnership is in their youthful exuberance – in relative coaching terms – with boundless energy and ambition. The same that took them from YTS pals at Oxford to hundreds of Premier League games.

Pitts’ role was less tangible and more nuanced than that of the others.

Sports psychology can be met with a roll of the eyes by those who do not believe the differences that can be achieved owing to mental wellbeing.

But not Ricketts, who threw his support behind bringing Pitts from The Racecourse.

His pedigree with the likes of Red Bull’s Formula One team, as well as with Brentford in the football world, spoke for themselves.

The boss said his head of performance would help unlock marginal gains to help Salop succeed.

There was no doubt Pitts spent sufficient time with Town on matchdays for his impact to be felt. He would be in Town’s dressing room home and away as well as in the week at Sundorne.

Ricketts and Pitts came across as a team, a partnership, that very much had each other’s backs.

There is no saying that eroded over the subsequent 18 months, but Ricketts was clear that Pitts’ exit came after the boss ‘evaluated how best to move the club forward’.

When fans do eventually get back inside the Meadow, they will see fewer blue-tracksuited staff prowling the technical area.

Perhaps that will be for the better – fewer faces, ideas and opinions could help refocus the team, giving players more clarity on who pulls rank.

Ricketts and Whitehead have two decades of friendship and top-level experience to call upon.

The Town boss will hope his new formula is a recipe for success this season.