First team coach James Collins believes opposition managers will know that we are not far off.
Despite us remaining winless so far this season, James Collins says that Micky Mellon’s Shrewsbury side will not be taking Crewe Alexandra lightly this weekend. The Railwaymen travel to Shropshire this weekend still looking for that first win of the campaign and Collins believes that another intense local derby could be just the stage to do it.
Collins says the players were extremely disappointed with their second half showing against Millwall last weekend. After equalising before the break through the Finn Lauri Dalla Valle, we ended up losing 3-1 as the excellent Aiden O’Brien hit a hat-trick for the Lions but Collins says a post-match chat with Neil Harris lifted his own spirits.
The club’s first-team coach explained to the club’s official web-site: “We have to get the mix right etween playing our way and keeping the opposition out. We are creating chances but we have also allowed the opposition to have opportunities themselves. We have to get that balance between attack and defence right and make sure that all the players understand their roles better.
“We have to defend as a unit and not just rely on the back four or Ben (Garratt) to make saves. It is not as though the performances this season have been hopeless. They haven’t and we have been in most of the games.
“I spoke with Neil Harris and his coaches after the game on Saturday and they had come to the Swindon game the week before. They couldn’t believe that we hadn’t been three or four goals up and couldn’t believe we ended up losing 3-1.
“They said they came away thinking about how they were going to stop us. They were very complimentary about the way we played and they were concerned because we had dominated the ball against Swindon, who are renowned for keeping the ball themselves.
“It is a good sign when opposition managers’ talk highly about your performances and worry about how they are going to stop you. It shows that we are improving as an attacking threat.
The coach added: “We never hit the heights of that Swindon performance against Millwall, but the players showed that they can do it. If they can reproduce performances like that and be better in both boxes then we can be a match for anyone in the division.”