Shrewsbury boss Steve Cotterill slams Nathanael Ogbeta’s agent

Ogbeta was subject to a rejected bid from Championship new-boys Peterborough earlier in the summer – and Cotterill has accused the highly-rated young left-back’s representative of ‘ringing around everybody’ in search of a move away from Montgomery Waters Meadow.

Cotterill maintains he is ‘hopeful’ of keeping hold of Ogbeta and does not foresee a second bid from the interested club.

“What I can’t do is stop his agent phoning all and sundry,” Cotterill said when asked about Ogbeta.

“It’ll be good if he reads this if you print it, because I know he’s been ringing around everybody – do you know why? Because they’ll tell me. I’ve been in the game longer than he has.

“I know what’s been going on behind our back regarding Nathanael.”

Cotterill insists Ogbeta’s challenge is to get more games and experience under his belt and says the 20-year-old is not ready to step up.

“What I would say is in the first 10 or 15 games last year where everyone saw him they’d have wanted to sign him. They might not have wanted to sign him in the last five, because the poor lad was dead on his feet.”

The boss added: “Number one he’s not ready for the step up yet. He needs to play more football.

"He needs to play in our team where he’s got competition, he didn’t really have that last year, so was afforded the luxury of playing 25 games, whereas if we had competition he might not have played all 25, certainly not the last half-a-dozen, because his performances then were not the standard that he set.

“That’s what happens to young players, though. But he’s a great kid, he has been subject of a bid that was turned down – I don’t think that bid will be revisited now.

“We’re hoping we can keep him around, but as I’ve said, if he goes, then he goes. We have to get our heads down again and get another one in.”