Paul Simpson spoke to us ahead of the trip to Shrewsbury.
“It will be another tough game,” he said. “I know I keep saying it but in the situation we’re in, they’re all tough games. It’s the next one for us and we’re looking forward to it.
“We’ve got to go there and play for pride and respect. We worked hard against Barnsley and now we’ll see what the weekend brings.
“We’ve got to make it a better game for ourselves than the Barnsley game was on Tuesday. Everybody connected to the football club is sick of losing, we’re not enjoying it, it’s a horrible situation to be in, we all know that.
“It’s tough, they’re a side who have been in League One for a number of years so they’re established. We’ve got to go and make sure we put on the right sort of performance. It’s a nice little ground and they’re effective in the way they play. We’ve just got to make sure we go and do ourselves justice.”
“They try to play football but they’re quite inconsistent with their results,” he continued. “They pick up some real good results but then they lost 3-0 on Tuesday. I haven’t seen the red card, so I don’t know if they’ve lost their discipline or if it’s an unlucky red card, but they’ve lost the game.
“It will be a tough game but we’ve got to go there and give it everything we’ve got. We’ve got nine games to go and we’ve got to finish as well as we possibly can regardless of where we are in the league table or anything else that is going on.
“We have a duty to go and do it properly. I’m going to continue to do that, and I hope the players continue to do that. We’ve got to try and give ourselves a lift as we end the season.
“We’ve beaten them this season and we have to take any positive we can get because we haven’t won enough games, it’s as simple as that. We’re starting games with confidence and belief at the moment and there’s been quite a number of times recently where we’ve gone a goal up without being able to hold onto it.
“If we get into that position I think we’ve got to be braver instead of sinking back in and thinking 1-0 is enough, because it isn’t. We’ve got to keep being front foot, so we’ll go down there and try and start on the front foot and get ourselves ahead, then hope we can go and get a second and defend properly. If we do that then we can make it a pleasant day.”
Asked whether he was looking forward to returning to the club he managed from 2008 – 2010, he said: “I’m not looking forward to going back there because of the situation we’re in. It’s not a pleasant situation so no doubt I will get some grief. I know what I did at Shrewsbury and I know how hard I worked when I was there. We didn’t get the rewards in the end by getting a promotion.
“My first job when I went there was to keep us in the league which we did, we got to the play-off final the next season and had a day out at Wembley but lost in the last minute. The next season I didn’t do well enough, I didn’t recruit well enough when we sold Grant Holt and Ben Davies, so I took the blame for that.
“I was given the backing by the club but I made mistakes. I always enjoy going back and I think it’s a really nice stadium they’ve built there. It’s a lovely area and I had a fantastic time living there. My main focus is on making sure we come away with a positive result this weekend.”
