Town lost 2-0 at home to Neil Critchey’s Blackpool on Saturday, their second loss in as many games. Blackpool is still very much in the running for the play-offs.
After losing, Shrewsbury is now 20th in the League One standings; if Cheltenham wins its next two games, Shrewsbury would drop into the bottom four for the first time this year.
Having saying that, Town has three important games coming up.
Winning these games could be crucial to their safety in League One. They play Port Vale on Saturday, Exeter, and Carlisle at the Meadow.
“If we can win those games, it’s also a game where those teams that are in the same area haven’t scored any points,” stated Boss Hurst.
That has been the case for a while—possibly even from the beginning, when, if you looked at every game, that one small part in particular seemed incredibly important.
We won’t find out until the end of the season whether it ends up being the decisive element.
However, I don’t want us to back down from that, and I recently told the players as much regarding next Saturday.
It’s important to acknowledge that this is a major game.
In any case, the match between Port Vale and Shrewsbury is significant for the supporters. However, you know it gets even greater considering the circumstances and everything both clubs are in, so in my opinion there’s no use in trying to downplay it. We must accept the fact that it is what it is. There are still a lot of games and points to be earned, so we can’t give up on those either. We have to go there and rise to the challenge.
We shall see, but we must attempt to improve upon our current situation after that series of games.
Hurst also acknowledged that he is not surprised by the predicament Shrewsbury finds itself in right now, but he insisted that the players need to demonstrate “belief and commitment.”
“That’s the brutal truth—I’m not standing here thinking I wasn’t expecting this,” he declared. We can, however, accomplish enough to play in League One the next year.
But there needs to be a component of devotion and belief.
“I mean a commitment to the situations as we’ve discussed, not a commitment to run around on the pitch.
Being perceived as assertive, proactive, perceptive, and simply being more proactive in order to make things happen.
We discuss attempting to score a goal. We were in a corner, and I saw a few of our boys stand motionless next to defenders.
