Ollie Westbury on Shrewsbury's transfer window and the need for quick recruitment

Ollie Westbury and Jonny Drury discussed Shrewsbury Town's transfer window plans on the latest Shrews Views podcast.

Transcript

00:00Gareth Hainsworth has talked about the balance, the need to go into the transfer market. I

00:04think it's clear that everyone sees from Shoesbury Persuasion that they need a bit of a change

00:09in the window. Oli, you reported last week that Shoesbury are after a striker and a centre-back.

00:15I think they probably need maybe a few strikers and a few centre-backs in an ideal world, but

00:21what's the latest on that? Can we expect any early movement in the window or what's the

00:27state of play on that?

00:29Well, I think the first task in hand is they will be planning for the January transfer

00:34window. Gareth Hainsworth has said that much. He says any manager worth his salt at this stage

00:38will be planning for the January transfer window and that's absolutely right. They should be

00:44planning for the January window. I think the mission now, between now and the new year,

00:51is can they stay in touch with the relegation pack by the time the window opens? If they're

01:01completely adrift, they're ten points adrift now, they lose three out of the next four,

01:07I think it's four games, because I don't think new signings can play on New Year's Day, can they?

01:14Not sure.

01:16In the past, like last season, they signed Roland Iduo and I swear he wasn't

01:19actually eligible to play on New Year's Day. So, I think it's four games, the one on Saturday and

01:25then the two over the Christmas period and then the New Year's Day game. So, you won't actually

01:30be able to, any new signings won't actually probably be able to feature until that first

01:34game into January, not on New Year's Day. So, in those four games, they've got to stay in touch.

01:41If they can make some ground back, perfect. And then they've got to get,

01:45if they are going to make transfers and they are going to be busy in the window,

01:48then they've got to do it sooner rather than later. They cannot be waiting until

01:53deadline day to bring players in because the season's going to be over by that point.

01:57They need to have their ducks in a row and they need to get these things sorted as soon as

02:02possible, really, if they are going to make changes in the January transfer window.

02:07It was interesting, wasn't it? We talked about this on last week's podcast that

02:11Gareth Ainsworth said that there won't be wholesale changes in the window.

02:16I suppose it depends on what your definition of wholesale is. But, yeah, I can't see if they

02:27have any intentions to try and stay up and Gareth Ainsworth says that he wants to, then that's the

02:32ambition is that they're going to try and stay up. I think they've got to be active. They've

02:35got to be looking to bring some new players in. They need to strengthen their defence.

02:42The amount of goals that they've let in is just not good. They're running out of adjectives to

02:50try and describe the goals that they've let in. So I feel like they need to bring some players

02:57in in January, but they need to do it soon. They can't dawdle and dwindle. They just need to get

03:03players in as soon as possible in that January transfer window, whether that's free agents or

03:08whether they slightly have to rearrange their loans, maybe do something like that. I think

03:14that the loans might be a bit later, but they might be able to get a couple of free agents in

03:18or something along those lines, not free agents, but players who are slightly out of favour

03:23somewhere else might be able to come in or something along those lines, maybe sooner in

03:29January than later.