View From The Town End: Shrewsbury Fans ‘Giddy’ At Return Of Paul Hurst

Reading have a second consecutive home game of the week, facing Shrewsbury Town after beating Port Vale 2-0 on Tuesday night. Salop will be tricky opponents though: having dramatically beat the Royals 3-2 in the reverse fixture, they’ve since slipped down the table but are now showing signs of life under new boss Paul Hurst.

To find out what went wrong for his predecessor, how Hurst is doing now and plenty more, we spoke to Salopcast. You can find them on Twitter right here.

How’s the season gone for you since we met in November?

Not very well! We were 17th (Reading were 22nd) and on 20 points after that game, and ahead of the game on Saturday we are three points and several places behind Reading in the league. We have achieved 15 points over the 26 games since! Our issue has remained scoring goals: against Reading that day we scored 30% of our league goals (after 17 games) which is a crazy stat!

What did you make of that game? Quite the dramatic finish...

It was a mental game. I never want to see my team lose, but I wonder if we would have changed head coach sooner if we had lost to Reading that day. I can remember clear as day turning to a lad who sits to me after we equalised. Just before the goal I said “Callum, Taylor is done for me”. I was going to post after the game we need a change of head coach.

I couldn’t really post that after we won, however nothing really changed in my thoughts towards Taylor following the win. Privately I had lost faith in the manager as early as September. We didn’t deserve to win 3-2 and it must have been galling for the Reading fans who probably thought they were finally going to see their team win away from home.

Photo by James Baylis - AMA/Getty Images

What went wrong for Matt Taylor?

Most things. Taylor took over the role in a difficult circumstances. Salop had just employed their first director of football and he decided to appoint his best mate as Taylor’s assistant.

However, the performances on the pitch were atrocious. The team did not look coached, they were poorly led and over time we played less and less football. Away at Burton Albion the team resorted to long-ball football the likes of Vinny Jones would have been proud of!

In return the Salop fans chanted “Matt Taylor, your football is sh*t”. If we get relegated the club have themselves to blame. We should have changed head coach months ago, and certainly not in the last week of the January transfer window. Over his reign we scored 18 goals in 28 games.

How’s Paul Hurst getting on so far?

Salop fans were giddy when Hurst returned. The club knew what they were doing when they brought Hurst back to the club. Hurst is a very popular man with the Salop faithful. He brought an immediate feel-good factor back to the club and the support for the team jumped up several notches overnight.

The feel-good vibes went to 11 when we beat Northampton Town away 2-0 in Hurst’s first game back. Not only did Shrewsbury win, we also dropped five at the back and hoof ball, to 4-3-3 and passing football.

Hurst’s record this season reads: W1, D2 and L2. However, the performances have been much improved. We drew away to Derby County and at home to Barnsley. We nearly beat Barnsley and were very lucky not to score in the 1-0 home defeat to Wigan Athletic.

What are the main strengths and weaknesses of this Shrewsbury side?

We are a hard-working, well organised side. We are a threat from set pieces and have a couple of stand-out players: Chey Dunkley, Jordan Shipley, Tom Bayliss and Dan Udoh.

We struggle to score goals. While much improved under Hurst, our inability to create and take chances has been our main weakness all season. We are the lowest scorers in the league; to put that into context Reading have scored 21 goals more than Salop!

How will the rest of the season pan out for you?

I am hopeful we can earn enough points to avoid relegation.

How do you see the game going on Saturday, and what will the score be?

I have a feeling that we will get a result on Saturday, 2-1 away win.