'Work to do': Ollie Westbury and Jonny Drury on Shrewsbury's 5-2 defeat to Bolton

Shropshire Star

Ollie Westbury and Jonny Drury bring their take as Salop suffered a heavy pre-season defeat at the hands of League One Bolton. After four pre-season defeats on the bounce - Michael Appleton's side were humbled at the hands of Wanderers. Callum Stewart and a late Will Gray strike saw Salop get on the scoresheet in the latest outing.  Ollie and Jonny discuss the defeat and how it shows there is work for Salop to do before the start of their League Two campaign.

Transcript

00:00Salop fans, welcome to Shropsystar.com. My name is Geoffrey. I'm here with Salop correspondent

00:12Oli Westbury. After Shrewsbury have taken a bit of a heavy pre-season defeat, they lost

00:185-2 to Bolton. Ends their 100% pre-season record. Oli, you cannot read too much into

00:27pre-season results. I'm sure a lot of Salop fans thought they were going to waltz the league

00:31after winning all their pre-season games tonight. A little bit of a reality check. Can't read

00:37too much into it, but I would say plenty of work for Salop and Michael Appleton to still

00:43work on before the start of the season. Yeah, I think I wrote at half-time the bubble

00:47had been burst. Maybe that's perhaps a bit of an over-exaggeration. It wasn't a great

00:52first half, was it? I mean, Shrewsbury were kind of, I mean, Bolton were just much better,

00:58weren't they? And, you know, Shrewsbury aren't a league one side anymore, but I suppose I

01:02remember back to the game, which was obviously Shrewsbury against Bolton here in the league

01:08last season. And Shrewsbury were very competitive in that game. And at one stage it was 1-1,

01:13I think, with like 20 minutes to go. So you look back and think, but yeah, it wasn't an

01:18ideal first half. Obviously Shrewsbury had only conceded one goal up to this point in

01:24pre-season, but it wasn't quite to be today. The thing is, 3-0 at half-time probably was

01:30a little bit, you know, could have been more. They did have some other chances. Joel Randall

01:35kind of hit one over the bar where they should have scored. They should have scored before

01:39they got the opener. So I suppose it just felt like a bit of a, you know, a rusty first half

01:44performance really from town. And then after the break they kind of got one back through

01:50Callum Stewart and then kind of a fairly unlucky home goal. I find like home goals at a near

01:56post when you're trying to clear it are fairly unfortunate, aren't they? And then maybe a

02:00poor fifth goal to concede before Will Gray kind of taps one home at the end. It's a really

02:06difficult balance. I hate pre-season, so do you. It's a bizarre situation to be in because

02:12you can't judge them after the league. You know, you've got, you know, you can't judge

02:19them after beating Kiddie and I don't think you can judge them after losing to Bolton.

02:24I feel like we need to give this team a chance in league football, a chance to develop and

02:29then we can kind of go from there. So, you know, no overreactions really from this evening.

02:34Some positives, some good things, some bad things, some things that I'm sure that Shrewsby

02:38would like to do better. It'd be interesting to get, obviously we've spoken to Sam

02:42Lucas post-match, but it would have been interesting to get Michael Afton's take

02:46on the performance.

02:46Yeah, well that was going to be my next question. How do you think he was, will have kind of,

02:50you know, you've spoken to him I think a couple of times in pre-season. Now, how do you think

02:53he'll be feeling, you know, after, what's that, four or five pre-season games now, you know,

02:57he's got new signings through the door, you know, Salah fans I'm sure would like to see

03:01more, you know. What do you think he's feeling about the summer? Obviously, you know, on the

03:06record he's going to be positive, but do you think he will genuinely be happy with what

03:10he's seen from his players and what he's got done this summer so far?

03:14I think it's an interesting one with Afton because he's not bothered about, he'll say

03:20what he thinks, you know, and he came out after Telford last week in the last 20 minutes

03:24and he tore strips off him. He was really angry with that second half performance against

03:28Telford. So, it would have been interesting to get his thoughts on the kind of the first

03:36half, or just the game in general really. I think ultimately they've played five games,

03:40won four of them, you know, I think that's a pretty positive, you can't grumble about

03:46that too much, can you? It's a pretty decent showing and it's all about how they get on

03:53that first game this season against Bromley, you know, that's what we're all, that's what

03:56we're all here for, we're all here for that for the first league game, we're all here to

04:00see how they get on in League Two. I think the recruitment has been decent, they've got

04:03a few injuries that I think they'd like to get Tom Sang back in the team, obviously Will

04:07Boyle not involved today. So yeah, there's a couple injuries knocking about George Lloyd

04:13obviously going off in the second half, so they have got a relatively small squad so that's

04:18not really something that's going to do them many favours if they pick up injuries, but

04:22you know, I think Shrewsbury are going to be competitive in League One, so you know fingers

04:27crossed that they can build from a positive pre-season despite a kind of disappointing

04:32result tonight and go from there.

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