Shropshire Star

David Longwell: Punishing schedule hitting Shrewsbury Town hard

David Longwell believes the season’s intense schedule has led to an increase in injuries – but thinks Shrewsbury has squeezed every inch from the squad.

Published
Last updated

Aaron Pierre is the latest player to be dealt a muscle blow, with another calf injury possibly ending his season prematurely.

Town’s injury situation has eased as the season progressed – at one stage former boss Sam Ricketts had around a dozen missing – but players are still going down to strains. Josh Daniels (calf) and Brad Walker (groin) are recent examples.

The League One season started a month later than usual and Shrewsbury missed three weeks in January due to the Covid-19 outbreak at the club, meaning an intense run-in of games was always likely and there are still seven games to fit in the final four weeks for Steve Cotterill’s side.

“Definitely, when you’re playing more games in such a condensed time you are always going to be more susceptible to injuries,” admitted Town first-team coach Longwell. “You’re asking a lot of players and unfortunately there’s going to be some that will break down, with contact injuries or strains here or there.

“That’s just because there’s so many games when you’re going Saturday-Tuesday, Saturday-Tuesday. It’s been great some of them haven’t broke down at all.

“But everybody’s bodies are different. Sometimes you can’t quantify from one person to another.

“You’re always going to get a few but we’ve managed to use the squad to its absolute maximum and fortunately it’s worked out fine for us.”

Influential defender Pierre, who has previously courted the interest of Championship suitors, missed two months between February and April with a serious calf issue that also affected his tendons.

He returned for one fixture and was due to play the second of the Easter Bank Holiday double-header but pulled up in the warm-up.

Assistant manager Aaron Wilbraham warned after Tuesday’s heavy 4-1 defeat at Oxford that the defender could miss the rest of the season.

Longwell said: “When you get injured there’s always a chance something might happen again, it’s the way it is.

“But to be fair to him, everybody knows him, he’s such a good type, good character, good guy, works hard, he’s been great for the club. It says a lot for the boys that have come in for him that we’re still doing okay.

“But we still want him in the team because he offers so much – particularly in both boxes, he scores a lot of goals for us.

“But it’s football. Because of his strength of character, yes he’ll be disappointed but he’ll get on with it.”

Players’ coaching time on the training pitches at Sundorne Castle has been severely hit by the congested schedule.

Much of the time is spent recovering from games and preparing for upcoming clashes, including tactical debriefs and information on the opposition.

Town have still been able to enjoy some time on the grass, however, and Wilbraham said after Shrewsbury shipped soft goals at the Kassam Stadium this week – including two from set-pieces – that players had been working on defending set-pieces just 24 hours earlier.

Salop welcome mid-table Doncaster for an early kick-off on Saturday. Rovers are winless in nine including five defeats on the spin after their form took a dramatic nose-dive.