Analysis: Frustration mounting after Shrewsbury serve up a shocker

The fixture looked as if it was destined to be a goalless draw, which in truth was all the spectacle deserved, but a defensive lapse from Town in the 85th minute allowed Jamie Reid to steal the points for Steve Evans’s men.

The loss led to Town fans showing their frustration at full-time with boos and chants aimed at the head coach Matt Taylor.

The pressure is most definitely starting to mount on him and his team as they simply need results.

The facts of the matter are pretty bleak and make fairly distressing reading for the Town fans.

The loss was their sixth in the last seven games across all competitions and the goal stats are truly woeful with the team having scored 17 goals in their 27 League One games – they have only scored in 12 of those games.

The main issue has been there for all to see for some time now and yet, unfortunately, no improvements have been made at this stage.

For months Taylor has admitted the goals scored and more importantly, the number of chances created have not been good enough but sadly after firing another blank Shrews find themselves in an all too familiar position.

Calls for new strikers have been made by Taylor in the last few weeks and Shrews are understood to be interested in Nathan Fraser from Wolves and Ademola Ola-Adebomi from Crystal Palace.

It felt as if progress had been made in the games against Fleetwood and Wrexham with Town creating so many opportunities.

But it was the old adage of one step forward two steps back on Saturday as Town did not create anything in front of goal.

Will new strikers solve the goal issue? Well, in fairness to Ryan Bowman, it is hard to think back to the last time the forward missed a chance.

That is the overriding issue. They are not creating enough on a consistent basis to score the volume of goals to win them games and it has been a problem for too long.

Town’s league position is not too bad in the context, so they do have some leeway but they need to turn things around, and they need to do it quickly.

The decision at the start of the game to pick four centre-backs was made to allow Town to deal with the aerial bombardment from the visitors – which in fairness was something that worked for the first 85 minutes of the game until they conceded, but arguably took away most of Town’s attacking threat.

Jason Sraha made a meal of clearing the ball in his own half, then Aaron Pierre made a hash of his clearance.

It fell straight to Jake Forster-Caskey, who played a wonderful ball through to Jamie Reid.

As someone who has scored 15 goals in League One already this season – which is just two behind the whole Salop team – you felt he would not miss.

His first touch was excellent and his finish was just as good as he slipped it in beyond Marko Marosi before celebrating with the Stevenage fans in the away end behind the goal.

It was the only moment of quality in the game and with Town’s record once they go behind and the lack of goals in general you knew that was enough to earn Boro victory.

Everything about the game on Saturday seemed off.

The atmosphere was flat, and that was perhaps down to the fact not even seven days prior there was an incredible spectacle against local rivals Wrexham, which despite creating a host of chances, Town failed to score and ended up on the wrong side of the result.

There were more than 9,000 in for that game but with the way the team are playing a the moment, you cannot blame fans for staying away at present with just over 5,000 in attendance on a cold afternoon in Shropshire.

Taylor is a good person, but inevitably in football when results and runs of form like this happen questions have to be asked, and the pressure on him is starting to crank up.

There is no hiding place in his job and when asked if he feels he can turn it around he maintained: “If I didn’t feel like that then I might as well go and hand my notice in now.”

So the boss will get to work on the training pitch again this week as he prepares his side to play Peterborough next week – not quite the fixture you want when you are not in your best form.

But they will have to find a game plan to get a result.

Taylor once again said he ‘hoped’ there might be a new face before the game but with the difficulty of doing January business, fans must wait in hope.