Shrewsbury Town must keep improving in possession - Michael Appleton

Salop made a conscious effort to play more at Adams Park - in a game they got a point against third-placed Wycombe Wanderers. 

After a disappointing start to the season, Shrews' points return got better under Gareth Ainsworth, but they were direct with their style of play. 

Michael Appleton, who was appointed last week after Ainsworth walked out on Shrewsbury, has said he wants to try and play more when they have the ball. 

And that was evident on Tuesday evening. 

The head coach said: "We just need to keep progressing and keep improving bit by bit.

"I mean, I thought in our defensive third and the middle third, we were excellent in terms of our passage of plays. 

"I think we can be a little bit better in the final third, but I think that's just technique and sometimes down to possibly ability at times.

"But there'll be moments, and we'll have better moments where we have longer periods of sustained pressure. And when we do that, that's when we've got to take the chances."

Appleton wanted his players to try and play on Saturday at St Andrew's - a game in which Town were thumped 4-1 by the league leaders. 

"And it was one of them where, on Saturday, I just thought we could have been a little bit braver with the ball," he continued. 

"I know we played a top team, I get that, huge budget, great players, all that type of stuff. But I still think that we could have been a little bit braver. And I thought on Tuesday they did that in abundance.

"What people don't realise is that, when you're trying to play as expansive as they tried to in the first half, it actually is more tiring.  

"It's more taxing on the body. And when you go a little bit longer, and you have to go a little bit longer, a lot of the runs you do are straight-line runs, so you don't feel the tension on the body as much. 

So, for them to deal with that and, as I said before, cope with what came in the second half, we knew there'd be pressure."