Shrewsbury Town boss: Pre-season results are ‘immaterial’ at this stage

Gavin Cowan insisted Shrewsbury Town’s pre-season results are insignificant at this stage, with his focus firmly on the bigger picture.

The Salop boss stressed that his priority is getting minutes into his players’ legs, embedding his ideas and building towards the start of the competitive season following their opening game at the Isle of Man football festival.

A penalty shootout defeat to non-league Radcliffe on Friday means Town head into today’s third-place play-off, with an 11am kick-off.

The game finished goalless after 90 minutes, leaving Salop still searching for their first goal of pre-season after two outings. However, Cowan is unfazed by the results at this stage of their preparations.

He said: “At the moment results are a little bit immaterial. We all want to win, that's intrinsic in us.

“But it is about the lads' condition. I have to look at the bigger picture.

“I'm passionate about results, but I'm not overly emotional because I focus on us and how we're going to build for Tranmere away.

“So yeah, just literally giving lads minutes, getting them to where they need to be. It's a bigger picture. So I have to stay focused on what that looks like.”

Town face FC Isle of Man at in Ramsey today before travelling back across the Irish Sea to Shropshire.

Shrewsbury then host Everton Under-21s in their first home pre-season fixture on Tuesday evening before welcoming Championship Midlands neighbours West Brom to the Croud Meadow next Saturday. Live coverage of both friendlies will be available on the Shropshire Star website.