Shrewsbury Town: Michael Appleton believes success can come after hard times

Shrews will find themselves playing in the fourth tier of English football next season for the first time in over 10 years. 

And after relegation, Appleton is a big believer that to achieve anything meaningful, sometimes you must hit your lowest ebb.

He said: "Now listen, we might hit the ground running right from day one and it'll be nice and smooth, but if you want absolute genuine success, and I am a big believer in this.

"You have to either have failure or be on the brink of failure.

"The reality is we're a club that's been relegated, so we've had failure this year, and that's happened, but sometimes you need that to have sustainable success.”

Appleton is an experienced operator, having worked in the football league for many years. 

He and Town’s director of football Micky Moore landed their first signing of the summer last Friday with Tom Anderson joining after turning down a contract at Doncaster - he signed a two-year deal in Shropshire. 

And Appleton is trying to get Salop into a position where they are built for sustainable long-term success with his eye on more than just the short term. 

He continued: "If that means that this club over the next sort of four or five years can just gradually just get better and better, you know whether the chairman stays or whether it's new owners that come in. Then that is the aim.”

Appleton is set to be at Shrewsbury for the next two seasons after penning a two-year deal at the start of this month.