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.
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.
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SportsTranscript
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