Paul Hurst unveiled as Shrewsbury Town manager: Ollie Westbury & Jonny Drury analysis

Shropshire Star

Ollie Westbury and Jonny Drury discuss Shrewsbury Town's appointment of Paul Hurst - after his unveiling at the Croud Meadow. The 49-year-old has returned to the club to replace Matt Taylor - six years on from leading Salop to the League One play off final. Ollie and Jonny discuss Paul's press conference with the media, what he say about his departure in 2018, his January transfer window plans and much more.

Transcript

00:00 Hello Salah fans, welcome to ShropshireStart.com. My name is Jonny Drew. I'm here at the Crowd

00:12 Meadow alongside your Salah correspondent Oli Westbury after Paul Verhurst has just

00:16 been unveiled as the new Shrewsbury Town Manager for the second time. He was here, Oli, alongside

00:22 Director of Football Mickey Moore, answered an awful lot of questions about his, well,

00:27 it's probably the worst kept secret in the region for the last couple of days that Paul

00:31 Verhurst was going to return to the Crowd Meadow. Just your general reaction to what

00:36 he had to say? Obviously all positive, a lot of positive reaction from the supporters and

00:40 it looks like an appointment that's going to potentially galvanise the fan base. Yeah,

00:45 yeah, he kind of left this room. He was sat in that chair, you can see, over my right

00:49 shoulder and he left this room probably about 20 minutes ago. I asked him an awful lot of

00:55 questions. I felt bad at one stage because I thought I'd just keep going, keep going,

00:59 keep going. But kind of got lots of stories now over the next couple of days over different

01:03 styles, different kinds of stuff from formations to recruitment to kind of what his role entails,

01:11 kind of the relationship between him and Mickey Moore. So lots and lots of stuff to come.

01:15 As a general, I thought he spoke pretty well. But I think one thing that we do find about

01:20 these unveilings, and he did say it himself actually, but the proof is in the pudding,

01:26 isn't it? We've been to several unveilings where managers have come across really well,

01:31 they've spoke really well, they've been really, really articulate and that is all you can

01:34 really be. You can speak well, but actually we'll have to wait and see how the team goes

01:40 and that's nothing against Paul Verhurst. That's just manager unveilings in the past.

01:45 I mean, I can remember when myself and you went to the Steve Bruce one, didn't we? And

01:49 he was...

01:50 What time was that?

01:51 Well, we went out of that one thinking, oh, he was absolutely brilliant and he turned

01:53 out to be, well, we know how he turned out to be. So that's kind of where we're kind

02:00 of at really. But he said a lot of things, there's lots and lots of interesting stuff

02:04 in there. Obviously, we sat alongside Mickey Moore and there was kind of quite a few questions

02:09 asked of him as well, mainly by me. So, yeah, lots and lots of interesting stuff to come

02:15 out of the next few days.

02:16 Yeah, he's returning to the club, I think it's six years since he departed, six years

02:20 since he guided us up on that incredible season where they almost got to the Championship

02:26 and then there was that sort of acrimonious departure to Ipswich. But he spoke an awful

02:31 lot about, ever since he left, he always had a desire to return. He spoke very highly of

02:35 the chairman. Now, I know his relationship with the former Chief Executive, Brian Caldwell,

02:40 was pretty frosty at the end, but he spoke very highly of Rowland Whitchurch. I think

02:43 the quote he used, you can see it on the shop, he kind of owes the chairman, he always wanted

02:47 to come back. And he did address that departure as well. It's a case of, like you say, proof

02:53 in the pudding, but he was saying all the right things. I think he was pretty honest

02:56 and pretty genuine in the way he spoke about it.

02:58 Yeah, no, absolutely. I think he was pretty honest, I think he was pretty genuine. He

03:03 didn't shy away from it. He was asked quite a lot of things. Obviously, he was asked about

03:06 his departure and I think I said to him, obviously, probably the majority of fans are absolutely

03:11 over the moon to see you back. But obviously, there's a minority that are still sceptical

03:15 based on the way that you left to go to Ipswich and what would your message be to those fans.

03:24 I can't actually remember what he said because I asked him so many damn questions. I can't

03:28 remember what he said. I'm going to have to go and listen back to my dictaphone.

03:31 I think he basically said that he understood, but then he feels that the majority of people

03:35 will understand why he left. Obviously, he went to go and take a Championship job that

03:39 obviously didn't pan out, but it's come full circle now and he is back at Shrewsbury. What

03:45 he talked about as well, Oli, as well as all the niceties of coming back and always having

03:49 that desire to come back and now he's had the chance to return to the crowd. He also

03:53 talked about fans, there's not many days left in the January chance window, but fans want

03:58 to hear about that. They are hopeful of faces through the door between now and the 1st of

04:03 February when the deadline ends. The clock is ticking, but I think Hurst is also hopeful

04:08 of maybe two, three, even four players through the door, hopefully, if they can get things

04:13 done.

04:14 It's very difficult in this scenario because obviously you ask the questions, but you don't

04:17 always get the straight answers. That's nothing against Paul Hurst or Mickey Moore in this

04:21 scenario, but Paul Hurst hasn't taken a training session. He has watched the players, he can

04:25 say that, he's watched games, watched a lot of past games, so he's aware, but he's not

04:31 taken a training session, doesn't know what he's got to work with. So he needs to have

04:36 a look, but they need to do that really quickly before then figuring out how they're going

04:42 to best go about it.

04:44 It's a question that you have to ask, but probably if you're going to get the answer

04:49 that you want at the moment, he said that he does hope that they will be able to do

04:53 some business, but how much business they will be able to do at this moment in time,

04:57 it's probably hard for them to actually... Because I said, how many players do you want,

05:02 what positions do you want, and obviously he didn't really give too much away in that.

05:06 I mean, say two, three or four, that's quite a varying range. So we're just going to have

05:11 to wait and see, but he did speak well. He's cool, calm and collected, I would have said,

05:17 is the way that I would have described how he was.

05:19 There's a lot of stuff that he did say that will be on Tropstar.com and in the Tropstar

05:23 over the coming days, and from Mickey Moore as well, spoke about some really interesting

05:27 stuff. But another thing that he sort of addressed, and Mickey Moore did as well, they talked

05:30 about systems and formations, and we know when Matt Taylor came in, there was this sort

05:33 of blueprint of playing a 3-5-2 and a specific system, but Paul Hearst gives some very interesting

05:39 comments on that, of how he's played in recent years, at Grimsby and when he was at Shrewsbury

05:44 previously, and how he's going to try and turn things around.

05:48 Yeah, yeah, he did. He spoke quite a lot on, I asked him, I said, obviously, so far this

05:53 season we've played 3-5-2 or 3-4-3, those formations, and I wanted to kind of get where

05:59 he thinks he's at. But what he did say, he kind of kept his cards close to his chest,

06:04 I suppose, but said that, I think that you need to be able to be flexible. And when he

06:08 was at Grimsby, he did say that he kind of automated between different systems, which

06:12 I thought was a really interesting approach and an interesting answer.

06:17 So what formation are we going to see when we rock up at Northampton on Saturday? I'm

06:21 not, I couldn't, honest to God, at first I thought, he played 4 at the back last time,

06:26 so that's what we're going to see. But I'm not convinced by that, because he said that,

06:31 if everybody knows what formation you're going to play, then you're much easier to figure

06:34 out. So we're going to have to wait and see what they turn out at Northampton on the weekend.

06:40 There you go Salah fans, Paul Hearst back in the job for a second time and you can see

06:44 all the reaction from his unveiling on Shopstar.com

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