Shropshire Star

Shrewsbury Town v Plymouth: Ethan Ebanks-Landell back from Covid in time for Pilgrims clash

Shrewsbury have been boosted heading into tomorrow’s home clash against Plymouth by the return of skipper Ethan Ebanks-Landell.

Published
Last updated

The captain has completed his 10-day isolation period after testing positive for Covid-19, during which he missed three games.

Centre-half Ebanks-Landell returned to training at Sundorne Castle yesterday and is in Steve Cotterill’s plans heading into tomorrow’s visit of Plymouth, where Town go in search of their first points of the League One season.

Former Wolves man Ebanks-Landell’s condition after testing positive did not deteriorate further and the defender only suffered from mild symptoms – but was unfortunately forced to stay away from the club and miss contests against Lincoln, Morecambe and Portsmouth.

“He’s back in training now – so it’’s a positive he was a negative,” Cotterill said.

“No he didn’t (get any worse). In fact, I’m not even sure he had too many symptoms, he looked fine this morning.

“But that can happen, you can pick it up and have nothing wrong with you. It ended up being costly really, for him, in terms of missing three games. He’s available for selection.”

Matt Pennington, Aaron Pierre and George Nurse have been part of Cotterill’s back three in Ebanks-Landell’s absence, albeit Town played a 4-4-2 on Tuesday night with Nurse at left-back.

The manager, meanwhile, has revealed that injury victims Shaun Whalley and Ryan Bowman, who have missed the last three and two games respectively, are close to making a return for the visit of 16th-placed Plymouth. Midfielder David Davis could also return to the side after a knock.

Yesterday’s new recruit Khanya Leshabela is also in contention for a Town debut after signing on loan.

“They’re close, it’s just whether Saturday comes a bit too quick for them, I just need to wait and see for that,” Cotterill continued.

“What we don’t want to do is put any of them at risk where we end up missing them for five or six weeks. They just had little niggles. If we didn’t have a three-game week it wouldn’t have been as much of a problem.”

Ryan Lowe’s Pilgrims head to Montgomery Waters Meadow in 16th after opening the league campaign with a win, draw and defeat. They were also busy in the window yesterday, bringing in loan winger Jordon Garrick from Swansea.

Cotterill insists that a repeat performance of Tuesday’s narrow defeat at Pompey – where he was delighted with how his team performed – will be enough to win most fixtures they compete in this term.

Town are yet to register a league goal in 270 minutes this term, although striker Daniel Udoh notched a double in the Carabao Cup – the second round of which takes place against Rochdale at the Meadow next Tuesday.

“I don’t need to see progression in our performance tomorrow from the other night,” the boss said. “That performance seven or eight times out of 10 will get us a win.”

“A chance will go in, the keeper won’t make two or three saves, Josh Vela’s shot gets a deflection and bobbles in the corner, something like that’ll happen and it might get us up and running again, because that’s all it’s missing.

“That and the fitness levels of a few individuals who aren’t quite where they want to be – not just my view on that – but there’s been unfortunate circumstance on those lads who have missed out a little bit.”