Matt Taylor has called for his Bristol Rovers side to put their 3-1 defeat to Huddersfield Town behind them “pretty quickly” ahead of hosting Shrewsbury Town at the Mem on Tuesday evening.
Rovers were second-best by some distance for the majority of proceedings at the John Smith’s Stadium on Saturday afternoon but did come up against a club that had been in the Championship last season and still boasted a number of players from their second tier exploits.
Now though, the Gas face a side they are very much expected to beat in Shrewsbury who have taken eight points from their opening 12 games and occupy the fourth place in the relegation zone.
Taylor has recently watched Salop’s last two matches in the flesh as they won 5-3 at Crawley Town, while Rovers were out of action due to internationals, before losing 2-0 at home to Exeter City on Thursday night. However, despite it being Paul Hurst’s side eighth league defeat of the season, the Gas manager insisted there was more about them than the scoreline suggested.
“Strange game,” Taylor reflected. “2-0 scoreline looks comfortable but it was far from it. A host of chances. I think Exeter’s ‘keeper got man of the match. So an interesting team.
“I was at the Crawley game the week before. Eight goals in that game so they’ve certainly got some threats about them. Physical team, strong team. We have to be where we need to be in terms of a home performance, because we have to put today behind us pretty quickly.”
There are likely to be a number of familiar faces on the pitch for Shrewsbury on Tuesday night with John Marquis, Luca Hoole and Jordan Rossiter all joining the club this summer after their contracts at Rovers expired.
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Rossiter and Marquis have started the last five and three league games respectively while Hoole was absent from the last two squads. Additionally, Marquis scored his first two goals for Salop in the eight-goal thriller at Crawley just over a week ago.
However, the Gas are still expected to go into the clash as heavy favourites despite recent pressure on Taylor with some fans chanting for a change in the dugout to be made at Huddersfield. There’s no doubt that anything but a win would increase said pressure significantly but the Rovers boss is hoping that there can be a positive atmosphere at the Mem which will only be created by a strong start and overall performance.
“We felt it first game of the season,” Taylor declared when asked about atmosphere in BS7. “We felt it against Cambridge. Obviously, we had the two blips – the Wigan game and then the Wycombe last minute heartbreak. But the way it was against Charlton is exactly the way we want it to be.
“If you get a result and a performance on Tuesday, we’ve won four out of six games at home, which isn’t a bad points return, but we know our away form also needs to follow suit and improve.”