Why Shewsbury Town have been training on their stadium pitch in preparation for Sheffield Wednesday

The Owls must register a win to have any hope of achieving automatic promotion – though they will need a great deal of help from elsewhere with both Plymouth Argyle and Ipswich Town requiring just two points from their final two matches to get the job done.

And it could well be that the pitch at New Meadow is not as well manicured as it would otherwise be after renovations at the Shrews’ training ground forced Steve Cotterill and his players to prepare on their stadium pitch this week.

Explaining the decision, Cotterill – a long-time friend of Wednesday boss Darren Moore – said: “If we leave a lot of the pitch renovations until after the season, there are so many other clubs that will jump in and we’ll never get the renovations done.

“We booked it in last year a week before we finished and the year before, which is a really good idea.

“We know then we get another week of growing before pre-season.”

Cotterill hinted that the week’s preparation hasn’t been as full-throttle as in weeks previous after they took on three of the division’s top eight – Portsmouth, Plymouth and Bolton – in quick succession.

“The week has been okay,” Cotterill continued. “The boys can rest and recuperate a little bit after last week - I thought that was a really tough week for them.

“But they are re-energised and they’ll be ready to go at the weekend.”

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