Shrewsbury Town urged to find a ruthless edge

Town’s hugely disappointing opening to the League One campaign continued with a fourth defeat from four games following a comprehensive 3-0 home reverse to Plymouth.

The boss worked his players extremely hard in pre-season on learning a new style of play as well and fitness and has told his players not to let the work go to waste. Shrewsbury are still yet to register a goal in their league campaign.

Cotterill said: “We won’t overlook hard work in training, but what we need is someone to get us a goal, get our noses in front. I think if we’d have got our noses in front we’d have gone on to win that game.

“We had some great opportunities in the first half, not long before their counter-attack goal.

“At this moment in time you just have to support the lads as much as possible, because they don’t want to have done all the work they’ve done to have go home on Saturdays point-less, really.

“We’ve got to carry on doing what we’re doing. The only way to change that is to spend money on players who take all their chances in the final third.

“We’re not in that position, so we are trying to bring young players through, we’ve got good young prospects and they’ve got to go through times like Saturday and gain experience.

“But I’d still say it’s definitely not a 3-0 game, but it looks bad because you’re at home and people will think you’ve played badly, we didn’t at all. We need to be more ruthless in their box and locking out when we have possession.”

Town continue at home in the second round of the Carabao Cup against Rochdale tomorrow.