Our preview ahead of the weekend's game...
Shrewsbury
Sky Bet League 2
Saturday 13th September 2014
The Lamex Stadium, Stevenage, SG2 8RH
Referee: Gavin Ward
Weather: 18 degrees, cloudy/sunny
Ticket news:
Tickets remain available online and in the club shop at 'in advance' prices until 4pm on Friday 12th September. After this time admission reverts to 'match day' prices. As this is a Category B game, 'match day' prices will be as follows:
Main Stand (home fans) and South Stand (away fans):
Adult - £22
Concession - £19
U19 - £14
U16 - £10
U12 - £8
East Terrace / North Terrace:
Adult – £18
Concession - £16
U19 - £11
U16 - £8
U12 - £5
Team news:
GW didn’t hint to any fresh injury concerns and also hinted that Calvin Zola’s improvements over the week mean he may play a much bigger part in the weekend’s game than he did against York.
View from the dressing room:
GW spoke about how Saturday marks a great opportunity to carry on from where the team left off in the second half against York, click here to read some quotes from GW.
Sign into Boro Player to see more from GW’s press conference.
Last season…
Shrewsbury were relegated from League 1 along with Boro last season, both finishing the season joint bottom of the table on 42 points. Graham Turner’s reign as Shrewsbury manager came to an end in January after four years in charge at the club, however the appointment of Michael Jackson didn’t help inspire a push for safety.
After a huge 1-0 win over Boro with only six games to go, things were looking good for the Shrews and their chances of survival, however four defeats and one loss to end the season sucked away all the clubs positivity and they ended up finishing eight points adrift.
Over the summer…
With relegation came big changes at Shrewsbury and the first major arrivals of the summer was that of manager and CEO. Micky Mellon, previously of Fleetwood Town became the new boss with Michael Jackson taking his place as assistant, whilst Matt Williams joined as CEO from Blackpool.
Seven players left the club over the summer including former captain Joe Jacobsen, whilst a massive 17 players have joined! Remarkably none of these signings included a fee, all of them coming in on either a free or on loan.
So far this season…
Shrewsbury’s fine start to the season came to something on an unexpected halt last weekend as they lost their first game of the season, away at Hartlepool. Despite this the Shrews are still 4th in the table and one of the favourites to win promotion.
The team have won all of their home league games, a 2-1 win against Tranmere followed up by impressive wins against Accrington (4-0) and Luton (2-0).
Andy Mangan has been the star man for the club so far, scoring four goals including the winner away at Leicester. Mangan joined from Forest Green in the summer and despite suffering a poor season at the club where he also had a spell on loan at Luton, the striker is clearly thriving under previous boss Mellon where he was a huge success at Fleetwood.
Last time we met…
It was one of the darkest days from one of the darkest seasons in recent memory when we last met; a 1-0 loss at Shrewsbury late last season left Boro’s survival hopes in tatters after a poor performance at Greenhous Meadow.
Jon Taylor scored the only goal of the game after 57 minutes and despite an improved second half from Boro, the equaliser never came even with the help of a late sending off for Shrewsbury’s Hall and an extra seven minutes of added time.
Stevenage team that day: Day, Obeng, Charles (Flanagan), Heslop (Doughty), Dembele, Ashton, Akins, Smith, Zoko, Reid, Freeman.
Unused subs: Morais, N’Guessan, Hartley, Henderson, Goodliffe.
Betting with SkyBet:
chance.23/10, with the draw a 15/8 favourites meaning you can get great value betting on a Boro win. The home win is priced at 7/5Shrewsbury are marginal
.9/1 whilst a 2-1 win is 12/1, 2-0 win is 7/1A Boro 1-0 win is
Don't forget - sign up to Sky Bet through the attached link and help the club earn extra revenue!
Not going to the game?
Listen to live match commentary on the Boro Player service where you'll also find full match highlights and full post-match interviews on Saturday. We'll also be providing live minute-by-minute updates on our Twitter account @stevenagefc, with the key incidents reported live on our Facebook page. The best match day photos will be posted on the club's Instagram account. Short highlights of the game will be on our YouTube page on Sunday afternoon, whilst extended highlights will be available on Boro Player.