Boss makes Shrewsbury Town demand as he targets more this season

Gavin Cowan has told his Shrewsbury Town side they cannot “settle in comfort” as he looks to drive standards even higher.

Salop dropped to 15th in League Two after suffering Halloween heartbreak against Gillingham on Saturday.

It was just their second defeat in nine league games, but Cowan wants more from his side and is determined to ensure they do not take their foot off the gas.

He said: “You know full well that I look at the bigger picture, of course. In nine, 10 months, we’ve brought the club a long way.

“As lovely as that is and as great as the feeling is - we’re changing the culture, we’re now going into games as being ultra-competitive, as opposed to how many can we keep it down by, and the training ground is a great place to be around.

“What we can’t do now is settle in a bit of comfort. It’s not really good enough for Shrewsbury Town.

“We finished 15th tonight. Are we the 15th best team in the league? Some people would say, maybe yes. I disagree.

“When I look at performances, I feel like we should have a lot more points on the board.

“After we’ve moaned at the referees…what about us? What about our mentality? I can think about the chances that we’ve missed.

“Sometimes we’ve got to look at ourselves. It’s not a quality thing, the lads have shown that they’re more than capable. But is it a mentality thing?”

Prospective director Brad Friedel watched on as Salop suffered their third home league defeat of the season.

Town’s last nine league outings have yielded four wins, three draws and two defeats. And after drawing with Rotherham United, they were just a point outside the play-off places.

But defeat to Gillingham, managed by former Shrewsbury boss Gareth Ainsworth, has left Cowan demanding greater consistency, as he believes his side have the quality to challenge higher up the table.

He continued: “We can sit in a bit of comfort and say: ‘Oh, we’ve come a long way’. Great, but this league will bite you on the bum.

“I just don’t want to jump into the algorithm of a team that wins a couple, draws a couple, loses a couple.

“If we find a little bit of consistency around the results that match the performances, we might have a real chance this season.

“Look at all the other teams, they’re all winning a couple or losing a couple. We’re sort of falling into that category. But performances aren’t saying that. Performances are saying that we should be coming out with more.”

“The players that kick on with me will be the players that have a really strong, intense mentality to go and win games, and are ruthless in those big moments, which is something that’s been a bit absent.”