Shrewsbury Town boss reveals 'performance coach' role to support players

Cowan believes the “confidential” service between performance coach Marcus Sharrad and his troops will help players express themselves.

The Town boss feels such a figure, as an aside from the coaching staff, will help players offload when required and said his squad are very open to Sharrad’s services.

It is another example of Cowan trying to take advantage of small margins to help boost Shrewsbury’s position in League Two.

“We've had our performance coach in, Marcus,” Cowan told the Shropshire Star. “So he's available to the players at all times. Marcus is someone I've taken with me.

“Obviously, he's an elite educator and has worked at Marlborough College for many, many years.

“His skill set is understanding the psyche of the players and they get that chance to offload onto him and speak to him, because it's not always easy going to a member of staff, or certainly the manager.

“I like to think of myself as approachable, but you need to give them other channels in which to express themselves.

“And they do that really well. It's confidential between them. He's able to give really sound advice. And then collectively, we just work on things that we think are appropriate.”

Sharrad, who joined the club during the summer, has a strong background in education. He describes himself as a ‘performance coach and consultant’ and an online profile states ‘I design learning and performance environments where people think clearly and perform consistently under pressure.’

He has a sporting background with football and rugby qualifications and has been working with Cowan’s Crossbar Coaching firm during the last year.

Former defender Cowan admitted he was less receptive to such methods as a player, but he has found a presence such as Sharrad’s to be positive at Town’s Sundorne Castle training facility.

“The players are really open to it,” the manager added. “As a player, I was less open than what they are because it was a different time.

“But they seem very invested in it. And it seems to support and help the work that we're doing. We’re just trying to cover every area, and make sure that every little one per cent is achieved for us to be able to be successful this season.”

Town previously had a performance coach in Jon Pitts under the management of Sam Ricketts between 2018 and 2020.

Pitts had a background in Formula One and worked at Brentford before Ricketts recruited him to support players when the club were in League One.