Shrewsbury Town injury boost as loanee returns to contention

Michael Golding is back in contention for Shrewsbury Town after returning from injury.

The Leicester City loanee has missed Town’s last three League Two matches but has returned to training and is available for selection ahead of this weekend’s clash with Bristol Rovers.

There is further encouragement for Gavin Cowan, with veteran midfielder Jack Price edging closer to a return from a hamstring injury.

The 33-year-old is back on the grass at Salop’s Sundorne Castle training ground, stepping up his recovery with running and ball work.

Cowan said: “Michael now is available for selection, which is really good. He’s trained really well this week.

“And Jack Price is just getting closer all the time. He’s now out on the grass doing lots of work.

“(It’s) so frustrating, it’s such an obscure, strange injury for him. Just rueing his luck a little bit, because it’s not one that anyone could have foreseen or it’s not part of any injuries he’s had in the past.

“It’s just the load that we’ve put on the players has caught him out. Which, when he was performing to the levels that he was during pre-season, it was really disheartening.

“But, the lads who have been in there have been fantastic. They’re getting better, and he’s only going to improve us when he comes back.”

Golding will hope to return to the picture as Shrewsbury welcome the Pirates tomorrow, looking to respond to defeat by Exeter City and get back to winning ways.

Cowan believes his side have made significant progress despite a slow start to the campaign.

He said: “It’s a bit of a slow start. I think we’ve evolved greatly.

“It does take that with my teams because of the way we play and the strategies that we put in place. I do understand it takes a bit of time.

“I keep getting shown this stats table where we’re supposedly fourth in the league for all the stats and all of that. I’m sort of the other way with all of that.

“It’s about the points on the board. So we’re a little bit caught in between, because we know performances have been really good. Certainly the last six performances have been excellent.

“But we know that we need to be a lot more clinical and we need to be a lot more ruthless in moments in a game.”