Ollie Westbury comment: Matt Taylor was only too aware Shrewsbury results weren’t good enough

And after a run of seven defeats in the last eight games across all competitions, the hierarchy have pulled the plug on his time in charge at the Croud Meadow.

It always felt like Taylor had a difficult task stepping into a job after last season where Steve Cotterill – who was incredibly popular with the fanbase – left with little to no explanation as to why.

The former West Ham, Bolton and Portsmouth man had the job of trying to match last season’s achievements, but that always looked to be a tricky task.

Taylor is exactly the kind of person you would want to represent your football club.

He is a charming man, who conducted himself with integrity throughout his six-month stay in Shropshire.

He was understood to be well-liked by staff around the stadium and at the training ground.

But in football, it is results you are judged on – and he and his coaching staff were unable to deliver them on a consistent enough basis.

Micky Moore was the man who appointed him, along with chairman Roland Wycherley.

With the length of time it took to part ways with Cotterill, it meant Town started on the back foot, with the players coming back for pre-season training a week behind other clubs – it is understood because of this, they started the season undercooked.

You could argue there was some risk attached to Moore’s decision to give Taylor the role, after all, he had little managerial experience apart from his spell at Walsall.

But he was Moore’s man, a young coach with a bright future, and you could see the logic behind it.

But it was a gamble that has not paid off.

They started the season well, a win on opening day against Cheltenham, but soon found scoring goals difficult.

It was not just scoring goals that was the problem for Town, but it was also the number and quality of the chances created.

There were games where they did more than enough to score goals. If you think back to home games against Charlton, then there were others where they simply did not do enough.

So after firing a blank in September, that was when it felt like the pressure started to build on Salop’s head coach – his reign ended with Town scoring just 18 times in 28 league games.

Taylor has been the first to say in press conferences that he is prudent and risk-averse as a coach.

And that worked out well in the early stages of the campaign as Town seemed to be the masters of the 1-0 win. But with the lack of goals and a defence that lost its solidity, picking up results started to become a challenge.

The defeat at Blackpool, a 4-0 loss, was a particularly bad day, and that was when you felt he started to lose the fans.

There were some small recoveries, but perhaps they masked the bigger problem, and then the recent run which has seen them lose to their relegation rivals, Wrexham in the FA Cup and most recently promotion-chasing Peterborough was a step too far, and the hierarchy decided they needed a change of direction to take the club forward after one win in eight.

There is no doubt a certain amount of luck is required to manage a football team, and Taylor really has not had much of that.

When you play in League One and League Two or even the Championship, you often rely on your loan players to provide that bit of sparkle to proceedings, but Salop’s loanees have hardly kicked a ball in anger – that is not Taylor’s fault.

Elliott Thorpe signed with big things expected of him, but made only one appearance in a Town shirt, and the same goes for Ryan Finnigan.

Kieran Phillips, who arrived injured, has not played since the end of October and is expected to return to Huddersfield – and the same for Brandon Fleming.

It is so often the head coach gets the blame, but Marcus Bignot – Taylor’s assistant and a long-standing friend of Moore – has also left the club, and he no doubt must take some share of the blame.

The Shropshire Star understands he changed the way they defended set pieces, away from a system that worked well previously.

And defending those poorly has been something which has cost Town points – the loss against Burton and even as recent as this weekend against Peterborough.

The players must take some share of the blame too. They have not been up to the required level, and individual areas have let Taylor down.

He may regret certain post-match comments where ultimately he criticised players for making basic errors – but you could not argue with what he was saying, he was bang on.

They needed to do better, but sadly we are in an era where players just have too much power and with the turnover of managers these days you have to be careful, otherwise the phrase ‘he has lost the dressing room’ gets banded about.

In this writer’s opinion, he didn’t lose the dressing room – perhaps one or two, but that can be the case in any dressing room where someone is bound to be disgruntled when you can only pick 11.

From the performance in their last game at London Road, those players were still giving their all – it just was not to be.

With things stacking up against him, it felt like Taylor was always destined to fail at Shrewsbury Town – the next man in has a big job on his hands.