A new year has dawned, and I’m hoping that 2020 brings Shrewsbury Town a change of fortune. We finished 2019 out of form, out of all cups, and out of the League One play-off places, prompting me to consider a change of tactic – and perhaps some significant changes in personnel.
In this chapter, I will take you through our January window business and introduce you to a future Shrews starlet. We’ll also play ten matches up until the end of February, including mouth-watering home ties against play-off rivals Milton Keynes and Luton – and local rivals Walsall.
TRANSFER WINDOW
We start off by looking at those players who left Shrewsbury in the winter window. Again, I have highlighted all January transfers in red.
A couple of players went out on loan, including 18-year-old reserve centre-half Luke Ward. Ward made his senior Shrewsbury debut in the Pointless Trophy earlier this season, but he needed a good half-season at National League North side Hereford to earn a new contract.
Much-maligned target man Robbie Muirhead was also on the move. There weren’t any clubs who were even remotely interested in sign Muirhead permanently, not even for free. And so the man who was not scoring for Shrewsbury was loaned out to National League strugglers York, where he could go about not scoring for them instead.
At least we got Ollie Norburn off the wage bill. The disruptive defensive midfielder – who had a lax attitude to training and took offence to even the slightest hint of criticism – was snapped up by Hull for £250,000. That represented a small loss on the record £300,000 we gave Tranmere for Norburn at the start of last season, but to be honest, I think the previous regime had vastly overpaid.
We also said bye-bye to defender James Bolton, who completed a £25,000 move to National League high-flyers Leyton Orient after the EFL transfer window had closed. Bolton had actually served us well as a backup option, but he had been rendered obsolete by the emergence of a younger, more promising right-back.
21-year-old Ryan Sears was recalled from his loan spell at non-league Chesterfield. I had planned to send him back out on loan to a League Two club, but the only team that made an offer for his services was… Chesterfield. Instead, I decided to integrate Sears into the first-team to provide cover for Kane Wilson, and to see if he would be ready to become a regular starter next season.
I would show you a list of our incomings next, but we [ahem] only signed one new player. Let’s have a look at him now.
Over the past nine months or so, a 16-year-old midfielder named Jack North had emerged as one of English football’s hottest prospects. North became a regular starter at National League side Aldershot before he’d left school, eventually producing six goals and seven assists in 38 starts. With impressive athleticism and creative passing abilities, this was a roaming playmaker who was destined to go very far.
However, Jack had not signed a pre-contract agreement to turn professional with Aldershot. That meant he could be poached by another club, provided that they stumped up £55,000 in compensation plus add-ons. I made my move before anyone else, luring him to Shrewsbury by promising him regular first-team action (from the bench initially), and a £1,000-per-week contract when he turned 17.
North was part of a ‘golden generation’ of Aldershot youth players who’d quickly broken into the senior side before being poached by bigger clubs in January. A couple of strikers were snapped up by Crystal Palace and Celtic, and a left-winger went to Middlesbrough on deadline day. Another player – an attacking midfielder – was coveted by some Premier League and Championship teams but stayed with the Shots for the time being.
That was my only January purchase, though a couple of players got away from us. We agreed a £125,000 fee with QPR for their 22-year-old Northern Irish right-winger Paul Smyth, who chose to sign for Hull instead. As we’ll soon see, that snub actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
I was more annoyed that Rochdale’s former Liverpool defensive midfielder MJ Williams turned us down, instead opting for a summer move to St Johnstone. Williams was the only affordable holding midfielder I could find who would’ve been an obvious upgrade on Anthony Grant and Bryn Morris.
Actually… there was Hamza Choudhury, who was available on loan from Leicester. Alas, I already had five loanees, so I didn’t want us to become too reliant on temporary signings. Choudhury’s contract with the Foxes is due to expire in June, so he could be someone that I bring in on a free transfer for next season. Watch this space.
AFC WIMBLEDON vs SHREWSBURY TOWN (League One, Match 26)
What better way to start the new year than with a new goalscorer? Centre-half Kyle Howkins broke his Shrews duck – at long last – 17 minutes into this match at Kingsmeadow, heading in a corner from Wilson.
Wimbledon were struggling at the wrong end of the table, but they responded emphatically just 12 minutes later. Right-back Toby Sibbick defied a knee injury to cross to left-winger Timi Elsnik at the back post. Elsnik’s shot was parried back to him by Freddie Woodman, but the Slovenian quickly passed to on-loan Bristol City striker Antoine Semenyo, who drove in the equaliser.
We then began the second half of a thrilling contest by playing some fantastic attacking football. We were most impressive in the 65th minute, when Charlie Colkett gave us a 2-1 lead. Brendan Galloway delivered a left-wing cross from just inside the Dons’ box, and Alex Gilliead‘s quick square ball was tucked away by our advanced playmaker.
Alas, that goal wouldn’t end our winless streak. Though Nathan Ralph’s 84th-minute header from an Elsnik free-kick was ruled out for offside, another Wimbledon defender found the net two minutes later. Elsnik’s cross was volleyed in by 18-year-old centre-half Archie Procter, who extended our uneviable run to six games. Mind you, our solitary point was still enough to get us back in the play-off places.
TRYING A NEW TACTIC
I started trialling a 4-2-3-1 system during the second halves of some of our matches in December, in lieu of my standard 4-1-4-1. Moving the defensive midfielder into the attacking midfield strata to provide our striker with further central support had produced some unremarkable, yet promising results. When we came round to hosting Peterborough, I decided to use it from the outset for the first time.
This is a rather rudimentary system, with few team instructions. Those that I have already set-up are consistent with our other tactics. The goalkeeper always distributes the ball to the full-backs instead of pumping long, we always look to stretch play out wide, and we press whenever the opportunity arises. While I think this could work as a counter-attacking system, I want to see how it fares without the ‘Counter’ instruction set first.
It’ll take some ‘trial and error’ to figure out which combinations of roles and duties would suit our midfield triangle best, particularly in relation to the front three. In the meantime, feel free to find faults in my logic and point out anything I might’ve missed. I promise I won’t bite… much.
SHREWSBURY TOWN vs PETERBOROUGH UNITED (League One, Match 27)
Maybe there’s some method in my madness, because this new system helped us to cut our winless streak! Mid-table Peterborough had unshackled themselves from Steve Evans, but they were in terrible form under new boss Neil Aspin, for whom this would be his sixth consecutive defeat.
That being said, it looked for a while that our attackers would try to outdo their counterparts on the incompetence stakes. I think we had ten successive shots off target before on-loan winger Rafa Mir broke the deadlock with six first-half minutes remaining. He got above veteran Peterborough defender Darren McGregor to head home Galloway’s cross at the far post.
Before this match, I had contemplated sending Mir back to Wolves if Smyth accepted our contract offer. By the 54th minute, though, I was having second thoughts about Rafa’s future. He claimed a second goal after cracking in a lethal left-footer from a pass by Colkett, who was also returning to form after a relatively lean spell.
Woodman only needed to make one save, denying Peterborough forward Siriki Dembélé from distance in the 79th minute. With that, our first clean-sheet victory in almost three months was completed. The 4-2-3-1 had already worked wonders, and New Meadow was a pleasant place to play football again.
SHREWSBURY TOWN vs MILTON KEYNES DONS (League One, Match 28)
I retract my previous statement. Milton Keynes had hit some good form again of late and were right in the mix for back-to-back promotions, so it was no disgrace to lose to them. It was just the manner of our fifth home league defeat this season that left a nasty feeling in my stomach.
Lee Nicholls kept Colkett off the scoresheet in the 19th minute, but he wouldn’t be so lucky against Angol two minutes later. Following Viv Solomon-Otabor’s mistimed penalty-area challenge on Galloway, Lee stepped forward to drill in his 15th goal of the campaign. That put him level with League One’s leading scorer – Chuks Aneke, who just so happened to be leading the opposition attack.
We had the ball in MK’s net again on 39 minutes. Shrews skipper David Edwards‘ strike from the edge of the area was deflected off defender Baily Cargill to our inside-forward Arthur Gnahoua, who finished with ease. Unfortunately, Arthur was clearly offside, and so we remained 1-0 up after 45 minutes.
After 46 minutes, though, we weren’t 1-0 up anymore. MK manager Paul Tisdale’s decision to replace Solomon-Otabor with Peter Pawlett paid dividends when the ex-Aberdeen winger dribbled through a channel and crossed to the far post. Forward came Aneke to stab in his 16th goal, thus re-establishing himself as the favourite for the Golden Boot.
From that point, Milton Keynes attacked us with increasing confidence. Their second goal came on 76 minutes, when Aneke’s short square ball was driven into the net from distance by strike partner Nathan Delfouneso. Teenage substitute Lifumpa Mwandwe could’ve salvaged a point for us in the closing stages, but Nicholls’ confident catch consigned us to yet another harrowing home loss.
Watching your team regularly lose home matches can do strange things to a manager. At the post-match press conference, I had a pop at the referee for not allowing Gnahoua’s ‘goal’ to stand, even though I knew full well that Arthur was offside. I then stormed out of the conference in a huff. Suffice to say, the FA didn’t look too kindly on that!
MANSFIELD TOWN vs SHREWSBURY TOWN (League One, Match 29)
We fell to 6th after the Milton Keynes defeat, which meant there was a strong chance we would have dropped back out of the play-off places if we couldn’t get a result at Mansfield. Though the Stags put us under some early pressure, we ultimately put in a convincing performance to allay fears of another slump.
We broke through after 32 minutes, with our widemen once again doing the damage. Wing-back Ryan Haynes‘ cross from the left cleared the Mansfield defence and was volleyed in by Mir. The in-form Spaniard could have added another goal from another Haynes delivery five minutes later, but goalkeeper David Martin denied him on that occasion.
When Wilson tripped Conor Sammon just outside our area in the 64th minute, Mansfield took the opportunity to get themselves back level. Otis Khan’s looping free-kick found Beni Banigime in the middle of our box, and the on-loan Everton midfielder’s half-volley was deflected in for an equaliser.
Our response was to regain the lead in the 66th minute. Haynes was the provider again, with substitute winger Alex Gilliead beating Stags left-back Lewis Gibson – their other Everton loanee – to head in his first goal for five months. Gilliead flummoxed Gibson again four minutes later, drawing a costly foul out of the teenager to give us a penalty, which Kaikai calmly drove in for a 3-1 away win.
SHREWSBURY TOWN vs LUTON TOWN (League One, Match 30)
How do you exact vengeance on a team who beat you 3-0 last time round? By beating them 3-0 in the rematch. Our successful revenge mission against Luton was even more satisfying because: 1) they were Steve Evans’ new club, and 2) another Hatters win would have put them into the top six at our expense.
We picked up straight from where we had left off at Field Mill by scoring a penalty after just four minutes. Haynes put a route-one free-kick into the Luton box, where our captain Omar Beckles was pushed by Hatters winger Luca De La Torre. Mir took this spot-kick, and he made no mistake by sending Marek Stech the wrong way.
Although De La Torre hit our post just before half-time, we remained in a strong position at half-time. We further asserted our dominance 11 minutes into the second half, when Mir made it five goals from five appearances in January. He brushed past marker Dan Potts to latch onto Colkett’s threaded pass before potting in a clinical finish.
Then, just to round off a ‘primera clase’ performance from our Spanish right-winger, he created a third Shrews goal in stoppage time. Charlie laid another fantastic pass out wide to Rafa, whose subsequent cross was thumped in by Fumpa Mwandwe. The 19-year-old had his first EFL goal for the club, and all was well again!
What a sensational month Mir had enjoyed! And to think that – only a few weeks earlier – I was planning to sign Paul Smyth to replace him!
Speaking of Smyth, let’s see how he was getting on at Hull. Ah, that’s right… he’d still not made his league debut for the Tigers! And what about our old friend Norburn? Oh, wait, he hadn’t played for them at all yet! [Poorly-stifled laugh]
Now where was I?
We entered February still sitting in 6th place, and with Luton now five points adrift after Rafa had ripped them to ribbons. Milton Keynes and Scunthorpe had also stumbled of late, which meant we had the opportunity to move further up the table by continuing our winning run at Portsmouth.
PORTSMOUTH vs SHREWSBURY TOWN (League One, Match 31)
We had an excellent recent record against Pompey, and that continued at Fratton Park. Mind you, it could have been another case of us throwing two points away from a commanding position.
It was at this stage last season when Angol really went off the boil. He showed no signs of losing his scoring touch in the 29th minute, latching onto Colkett’s pass in the Portsmouth area before curving in his 17th goal of the campaign. Colkett claimed another assist three minutes later, as Kaikai firmly silenced the home fans with a breathtaking banana shot from outside the area.
We were 2-0 ahead and looking full of beans, until Portsmouth pulled a goal back on the stroke of half-time, when left-back Tyler Denton’s cross was deftly volleyed into the net by forward Ronan Curtis. The hosts then levelled five minutes into the second half, as midfielder Tom Naylor struck right-back Nathan Thompson’s delivery on the bounce and beat Woodman.
Pompey’s comeback could have continued had Woodman not saved a potential game-winner from holding midfielder Anton Walkes in the 61st minute. Eight minutes later, the game was decided in our favour. Gilliead – a second-half replacement for a subdued Mir – weighted a cross to Kaikai, who dribbled past Walkes before driving a close-range shot underneath keeper Luke McGee.
With Sullay at the double, the three points were ours, and we climbed back up a couple of places to 4th. Next up was a home game against another team who’d regularly been tamed by the Shrews.
SHREWSBURY TOWN vs BRADFORD CITY (League One, Match 32)
My four meetings with Bradford had now seen me encounter four different managers. Paul Trollope was the latest man to occupy the hottest of League One hotseats, and he must have been fearing a P45 from trigger-happy Bantams chairman Edin Rahic after this one-sided affair. If you ask me, fielding a very conservative 5-1-2-2 formation from the outset should have been reason enough for Rahic to sack Trollope!
Shrewsbury being Shrewsbury, we were never going to make things easy straight away. Angol spurned some good chances to put us ahead, but it was Edwards who eventually succeeded just before half-time. It won’t surprise you to read that Charlie supplied Dave with the ammunition, which the evergreen Welshman fired into the top corner from 20 yards out.
Bradford keeper Richard O’Donnell saved a couple of early second-half efforts from Angol as we continued to batter the Bantams. In the 66th minute, though, he was once again flummoxed by our vice-skipper. Eoin Doyle’s clearance of a Colkett corner only found Edwards, whose first shot rebounded off another City player. Dave then struck the ball again on the half-volley before watching it swerve past O’Donnell for 2-0!
The contest was effectively over by the 70th minute. Amadi-Holloway ended a goal drought that stretched nearly three months when he prodded Wilson’s corner in at the back stick. Three more points were in the bag, and we would consolidate 4th place.
Bradford did at least return to Yorkshire with a consolation goal, which Sean Scannell headed in from an 84th-minute cross by on-loan Southampton right-back Yan Valery. Despite that, we made sure we had the final say four minutes later. Our new teen midfielder North sprayed a cross-field pass to Galloway, whose deep delivery into the box was then finished by Gilliead to round off a 4-1 win.
SCUNTHORPE UNITED vs SHREWSBURY TOWN (League One, Match 33)
This match saw 4th-placed Shrewsbury travel to 5th-placed Scunthorpe, who would have overtaken us had they won. Thanks to some needless generosity from our right-back Wilson, the Iron were on course to do just that after the opening minute.
Kane’s mistake was to literally throw away possession deep in the Scunny half, as his attempted throw to Gilliead in the Scunny box was intercepted by left-back Kevin O’Connor. The next Shrews player to touch the ball 20 seconds later was Woodman, who scornfully picked Elliot Frear’s half-volley from Ryan Colclough’s cross out of his net.
After being hit on the counter so incisively and so quickly, we could have fallen apart. Scunthorpe striker Nicky Ajose had a couple of opportunities to put his team 2-0 up within the first five minutes, but a header went wide before a right-footed strike was saved by Woodman.
We bounced back in the 35th minute, as Wilson forgot about his earlier error to help us equalise. Iron captain Rory McArdle could only clear Kane’s deep cross as far as Edwards, who quickly nodded it on to Kaikai. After cutting past opposition right-back Jordan Clarke, Sullay struck the ball with real venom and emphatically levelled the scores.
We hoped to continue the fightback in the second half, but luck wasn’t on our side. A header from Howkins clipped the post in the 57th minute, while Mir’s finish from Mwandwe’s through-ball in the 69th minute was called back for offside. In the end, we would have settle for a point, which not only kept us ahead of Scunthorpe, but also moved us into 3rd above Milton Keynes.
SHREWSBURY TOWN vs WALSALL (League One, Match 34)
We didn’t stay 3rd for long, thanks to this utter shambles. It was bad enough that we were handed our SEVENTH home league defeat of the season by our local rivals Walsall live on Sky Sports on Friday night. But to only get 5 shots on target out of 21, and to only complete 1 out of 42 crosses? Come on, lads.
Just like six days earlier, a well-worked counter-attack put us on the back foot early on. The mid-table Saddlers strung together a series of fluid passes before Zeli Ismail’s cut-back was slipped into the far corner by Jack Clarke. The 19-year-old Leeds loanee had been dubbed the ‘next Michael Owen’ by the media, though sadly for us, that did not mean he would pull up at half-time with a dodgy hamstring.
Kaikai’s finishing at the other end could be described as ‘dodgy’, though I had another word for it. Sullay had five shots blocked, one headed against the bar, one fired wide, and one saved by goalkeeper Liam Roberts. To be fair, most of those efforts were hit from further than 18 yards, which was a general problem for us. Only three of those 21 shots came inside Walsall’s penalty area. No further explanation needed, your honour.
Our incompetence extended to our defending of a Kieron Morris corner in the 55th minute. Bryn Morris failed to intercept his namesake’s delivery before it found Walsall’s left-back Cameron Borthwick-Jackson. Though Woodman got a glove to CBJ’s shot, the on-loan Manchester United star drove in the rebound. The Saddlers led 2-0, and they duly coasted to victory.
Losing so tamely against one of our biggest rivals dealt a major blow to squad morale. I tried to boost the atmosphere before our Leap Day match at Southend by reminding the players that they had played well of late and needed to keep their heads up. And that was true – the Walsall defeat aside, our recent form had been pretty strong.
However, this meeting only served to split the camp further. Most of the players believed they didn’t deserve quite so much praise, which I could partly understand. Conversely, there was a sizeable group – including many of our best players – who agreed with me.
It appeared that I had unnecessarily made a mess of this situation. When it comes to team meetings, sometimes the best option is to follow Ronan Keating’s advice: “You say it best when you say nothing at all.”
SOUTHEND UNITED vs SHREWSBURY TOWN (League One, Match 35)
Now there’s a response for you. Southend had won just once since the turn of the year, and their play-off hopes were on the wane. Losing 2-0 at Roots Hall would have raised serious questions about our defence, but a late comeback sent us home reasonably satisfied.
There were hardly any highlights in the first half, though the second had bucketloads of them. Southend forward Simon Cox took centre-stage early on, starting from when his delicate 53rd-minute header from Jason Demetriou’s cross crept into the net. The former Republic of Ireland workhorse scored again four minutes later, converting a penalty after Edwards needlessly hacked Ben Thompson to the turf.
Edwards started making amends in the 73rd minute, firmly and fairly tackling Shrimpers winger Nathan Holland in our box to begin a counter-attack. That move ended with one Shrews sub – Gnahoua – cutting the ball across the edge of the opposition area to another. Redmond hammered in his second goal for the club (his first from open play), and at 2-1, it was game on again.
We threw everything bar the kitchen sink at our hosts in the closing minutes, but when we did equalise, it came entirely by accident. Wilson’s swinging corner evaded Gnahoua, but not defender Alim Öztürk, whose unclean touch scuffed the ball into his own goal! A very unlikely saviour had gifted us a point out of nowhere!
We’re now into the final quarter of the season, and things are looking dicey. Fleetwood have pushed us down into 5th place, while Scunthorpe and Luton are a couple of points behind and looking to pounce on the Shrews like a cat on a mouse. Shrews aren’t technically rodents, but you get what I mean.
I’ll be back soon with this season’s penultimate chapter, which includes three tricky away games against Bolton, Sunderland and [ahem] Accrington. We’ve also got our latest youth intake – and if you thought last year’s was promising, you haven’t seen anything yet!
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