Richard Dobson: Shrewsbury Town’s results hurt

Salop lost for the 23rd time this campaign last weekend as they were beaten 2-0 by Gary Bowyer’s Burton Albion side. 

Shrewsbury are bottom of the League One table after 37 matches, and it looks almost certain they will drop into the fourth tier at the end of this season. 

Dobson, who is Ainsworth’s long-term assistant, was a guest on the Shropshire Star’s Shrews Views podcast, and he says while he may carry himself differently to the boss on the touchline, losing football matches impacts him equally as much. 

“It hurts me as much as it hurts Gareth,” he said. “There is no difference to that. 

“You will probably see it more in Gareth. "He's an emotional character. He'll wander around and thank the fans at the end of a game, and you can probably see it on his face. 

“It's no different for me. You might not see the same level of emotion in me, but it hurts. 

“Driving back down the motorway to my family when we've had a defeat, there's a lot of soul searching that goes on, and you kind of get to the front door and go right you've got to be a dad now stop thinking about football. It's hard to turn it off.” 

Since Ainsworth and Dobson arrived in Shropshire, there have been some real high moments. 

Salop beat Birmingham City 3-2 in their game, and they got the better of arch-rivals Wrexham in the cross-border derby. 

But of late, there have been some really challenging moments, with Town having lost six out of their last seven matches. 

He said: “There are games where I think we've been unlucky, and you come away going ‘Do you know what we've got beat today, but actually they did a lot of things right.’  “There's been other games where I think we've been poor and you are going ‘That's gone all wrong today.’ 

“They're the worst ones when you're actually picking yourself apart for what you should have done and could have done, and hindsight's a wonderful thing, isn't it? 

“It's part of the game you've got to learn to turn off some of the noise, and sometimes trust your own feelings and experience in the game.”

Shrewsbury are not in action this weekend after their clash with Reading was postponed due to international call-ups in the opposition's ranks. 

The full episode of the podcast will be available to listen to later this week.