Shropshire Star

Shrewsbury v Barnsley: Steve Cotterill calls on Meadow fans to crank up the noise

Steve Cotterill has urged the Shrewsbury Town fans to get behind their team on Saturday when they take on Barnsley at the Meadow.

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It will be Town’s third game in eight days, all of which have been at Montgomery Waters Meadow.

And they drew 1-1 with Oxford United in midweek in a scrappy game that Cotterill’s side had the best chances to win.

But the games continue to come around thick and fast, with Wednesday’s fixture taking a lot out of the players while their opponents this weekend had a free week.

So the odds will be stacked against Shrews with the way the fixtures have lined up, and the Town boss has called upon the supporters to get behind the team to help them get through another challenging fixture.

“We have another tough home game,” the boss said ahead of the match against the Tykes. “We need the crowd to be behind us.

“I thought they were quite quiet on Wednesday night. The boys need them at the moment – we really need them.

“Hopefully if they can turn the volume up for Saturday that will be really really important for us.”

Salop had the chance to move into joint seventh if they had won on Wednesday, but despite being the better and looking the more dangerous, they could not quite get over the line.

As it was their game in hand, they did still jump four places in the league which is evidence of how tight things are in League One – they now sit in 10th ahead of this weekend’s fixture.

Carl Winchester was only fit enough to make the bench in midweek, after suffering a knock to his calf bone.

It is not suspected to be a serious injury, but only time will tell if he is fit enough to come back into the starting XI on Saturday.

The Sunderland loanee was very good in recent games against Plymouth and Portsmouth. Elliott Bennett was substituted at half-time in the game on Wednesday evening, but Cotterill has confirmed that this was just a precautionary measure.

“He’s a little bit stiff, but we’ll wait and see how he is,” he said.

“He didn’t come off with another knock, and he probably could’ve carried on, but I thought it was best to bring him off.”

The visitors have had a steady start to this season – as a side relegated from the Championship you would imagine they would have hoped to be higher than eighth after their first 16 games.

But it is still early days for the Tykes.

Their manager, Michael Duff, was present at the game on Wednesday, and his side have the joint-best defensive record in the league – having only conceded 14 goals.

They have struggled a little more at the other end, only scoring 19, so it is likely to be a tight affair.

Devante Cole is their top scorer, having netted five times having played in every league game this campaign.