Paul Hurst claims that winning games shouldn’t come at the expense of his Shrewsbury Town team’s desire to play football and thrill their supporters.
The Town head coach has not lost since returning to Shropshire, but there were indications of overall squad development despite Saturday’s 2-1 loss to Cambridge at home.
Salop is attempting to play with the ball. And while it was evident over the weekend as they tried to penetrate a resolute Cambridge defence, they were ultimately unsuccessful.
Hurst claims there’s been a shift in style and that while he tries to amuse the crowd, he understands that if the team wins, football fans will still be glad to go home.
“I believe the guys are having fun, and they are accepting that this is probably what they would prefer, but it’s also about achieving outcomes, and I won’t ever back down from that,” the manager remarked. “I want us to play some excellent football. It’s great that a successful outcome may still make people happy, but I still want the fans to come and appreciate what they are viewing.
“I would rather be discussing a 2-1 victory and hear someone say, ‘I didn’t think you played much football.’ I would respond, ‘Yeah, but we won.’ Saturday was a little bit different. Though I believe it is fairly evident, there is a change in style—not that football is a monolithic sport; after all, there are many different ways to play the game, and as a manager and player, I have participated in both.
“Our ultimate goal is to win games, but we also want to play and try to entertain.”
Town now faces a challenging stretch of games as they get ready to play Derby the next weekend and then host Barnsley and Wigan at the Meadow.
Even while he prefers for his team to play football and move the ball forward, he understands that this isn’t always possible.
“We are playing differently,” he went on. We want to play in a certain way, and I’ve stated that I want us to do so as soon as we can, but I can’t be there all the time.
“Because if we don’t, we’ll discover that we give up the ball far too frequently, and from what I’ve seen so far, it was one of the problems where we were without the ball for far too long.
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