Paul Hurst’s Shrewsbury rebuild is starting to come together

The first game of Salop’s six-match pre-season schedule takes place at Brackley Town on Saturday, July 13.

The signing of Savin late last week means Shrews are getting into a position where they pretty much have a starting XI.

There is no doubt Paul Hurst is going to want more additions – he will need to sign another goalkeeper to provide Savin with some competition.

And the Town head coach will also want competition for places too. But for now, they have the nucleus of a senior team.

Perhaps the only position on the park Town are very limited at still is right-back.

As we know, Hurst likes to operate with a four at the back, and the right side of defence is an area they really do need to get at least one option – but in truth, they could do with two.

Morgan Feeney played there at the back end of last season, and he did a good job. But he is a centre-back by trade, and Town will perhaps need someone with more attacking instincts to link up with Tom Bloxham down the right flank.

At the heart of defence Salop have options.

The aforementioned Feeney will compete with Aaron Pierre and Toto Nsiala for a place in the starting XI – you would imagine Hurst will want one more centre-half for cover. He has already said they are done finding cover in the left side of the defence. Mal Benning signed his contract extension earlier in the summer and George Nurse, who has suffered back-to-back season-ending ACL injuries will return to the fold.

Albeit, given his injury record, Town will take extra care to make sure he is right for the start of the season.

There could be another addition in the midfield area. The current three options are Carl Winchester, Harrison Biggins and Taylor Perry.

Biggins is a new recruit, but the other two both played a lot of first-team football in Shropshire last season.

The future of Jack Price is still up in the air too. He has been offered the chance to train with the first-team squad so we will wait to see if he takes up that option when the players return today.

They had pre-season testing last week but the first proper day of training is today.

Jordan Shipley and Tom Bloxham are the current options to play either side of George Lloyd up front, but the truth is that is one area they need a lot more additions.

You would expect them to bring in more wide players and more strikers even though much still depends on Dan Udoh and whether he will sign the contract extension the club have offered him.

If he does not. Last season’s three best players Marko Marosi, Chey Dunkley and Udoh himself will all have left, leaving Hurst with some big shoes to try and fill.

It looks like the two weeks before the pre-season friendly are going to be busy.