Salop Social: The play-offs may seem a long way away – but Shrewsbury Town are on the right path

There is also praise for a new signing, as well as an early contender for Town’s most-improved player of the season.

Chris Hudson

Under Steve Cotterill we’ve been motoring along at two points a game.

If we maintain that over the remaining 19 games, we would finish with 75 points.

Now here’s the doozy – that would have been enough to make the play-offs in all of the last nine completed seasons.

You have to go back to 2009/10, when Huddersfield finished sixth with 80 points, to find a time when a team on 75 would have missed out.

The next four matches see Town play Joey Barton’s Bristol Rovers away, before home games with Wimbledon and Fleetwood and a trip to Rochdale.

These are all winnable fixtures against sides below us in the table, and offer a chance to pick up further momentum.

There are no guarantees, of course.

Indeed, Town have actually done better against the sides at the top end of the table than they have against those in the relegation scrap.

Still. It’s impossible not to get a little carried away.

I can’t help but recall Barnsley in 2015/16, who were deep in trouble, with 11 defeats and just 14 points from their first 17 games, but went on to reach and win the play-offs.

They actually finished in sixth place that remarkable season, with a final tally of 74 points.

In this most wretched of years, with all the misery and frustration that Covid has inflicted, it is reinvigorating to dream big.

Nathan Rowden

There were a few eyebrows raised when Curtis Main signed for Shrewsbury in the final throes of the January transfer window.

Some fans were a little put out that a potential deal for Will Grigg had fallen through for a second time, and there were numerous comments flying around social media mocking Main’s somewhat unforgivable miss against Wolves during his first stint at the club.

To be honest, I have never been a particularly big fan of Grigg and think THAT song has given him an inflated reputation, and I was more than prepared to give Main a chance.

A glance through his record and as a striker he’s never scored double figures and with him being 28 the concern from some can be justified, if you’re just looking at the one stat.

However, Main has brought something to the squad since joining which has been missing.

He’s decent at holding up the ball, pressing defenders, bringing other attackers into play and offering that sense of urgency in the final third.

He’s exactly the kind of player that has been missing up top.

While I’m not expecting him to bag a load of goals, I think he’s vital to assisting others in scoring, even if it’s quite early in the build-up, and fits perfectly into the new style Steve Cotterill and Aaron Wilbraham have imposed on the side.

While I have a lot of time for Dan Udoh, he’s always struck me more as an impact player, and an ageing Leon Clarke has been less than impressive so far and even dropped from the League One registered squad, conjuring up memories of Steve Morison’s woeful stint with us last year.

Curtis really does have the chance to establish himself as the Main man at the club and I hope he can continue to prove those doubters wrong.

Steve Jones

If there was an end-of-year award for most-improved player, we already have a frontrunner with almost half the season left.

For a long time, Josh Vela flattered to deceive. He seemed like another of those signings who looked great on paper but didn’t fulfil his promise.

Enter Steve Cotterill.

Vela has since gone from a passenger to a key player. Now fans can see why he’s scored regularly at this level, played more than 100 Championship matches and featured in the SPL.

Not bad at all for a 27-year-old.

Vela’s partnership with Oli Norburn – who also lost his way before Cotterill arrived – looks like one of the strongest Shrewsbury have had in central midfield for a long time. Playing as they are, the hard-working pair are a match for any midfield in this division.

Credit to them and, once again, the manager and his coaching staff.

As far as a turnaround goes, this is as good as we have seen and at least on par with 2016/17 under Paul Hurst.

It may even be better.