Sides at opposite ends of the table set to meet as Bristol Rovers host Shrewsbury Town

Bristol Rovers and Shrewbury Town, who sit on polar opposite ends of the form table, face off at the Memorial Stadium on Saturday.

Joey Barton will be itching to achieve his first victory as the new boss for Rovers, after falling to a gut-wrenching 2-1 defeat against Wigan Athletic in his first match in charge, courtesy of a 95th-minute winner.

The Pirates are suffering in a turgid run of form which has seen them pick up just one win from their last 13 matches in all competitions, a run which saw previous manager Paul Tisdale relieved of his duties.

Despite it being a short tenure, the sacking was probably justified as Rovers plummeted into the relegation spots and showed no real sign of fighting their way out. The squad, on paper, should be competing much higher in the third tier. Of course, football isn’t played on paper, Barton is inheriting a good squad but it isn’t ‘his’ squad, so in the short-term, he must just try to get enough out of the players at his disposal to keep his side in League One.

Shrewsbury will travel to the West Country with great confidence. Their own recent managerial appointment has lifted them beyond relegation concern as they have won eight of their last 12 league matches and are making constant strides in the right direction under Steve Cotterill, who has relied upon his assistant Aaron Wilbraham in the dugout whilst recovering from a violent COVID-19 case.

The Shrews’ 4-2 victory against MK Dons on Tuesday showed just how significant their improvement has been since the start of the season, racing into a three-goal lead within 20 minutes, providing great entertaining football which Shrewsbury fans had been bereft of for some time.

Full back Donald Love was removed from play 18 minutes in, but it was just precautionary and the former Sunderland defender is fit and available for selection on Saturday.

Max Ehmer, Josh Barrett and Abu Ogogo are likely to be out for Rovers through injury, but Barton’s men came through their midweek fixture against Wigan unscathed. Finding his best team quickly will be imperative for Barton and he has a good number of players to call upon.

This weekend’s opponents met back in October as Ben Garner’s Rovers side defeated Sam Ricketts’ Shrewsbury. It is fair to say a lot has changed at both clubs since, and fortunately for Shrews fans, the change has been all positive. A repeat of this result would certainly be a shock, but in no way should the League One strugglers be written off.

In order to provide a shock result, Rovers will need to nullify Harry Chapman. The forward, on loan from Blackburn Rovers, carries huge threat at this level and has shown just that so far scoring four goals in his last six matches for Shrewsbury.

Often utilised on the left of a front three, he adds significant goal threat and turns provider on occasion too. Picking up the 23-year-old in January was certainly a shrewd piece of business by the Shrews.

Rovers haven’t been at the races more or less for the entirety of the season, Shrewsbury matched their lacklustre performances until they appointed Cotterill, and since, they have never looked back. So perhaps Barton’s appointment will kick the Pirates into gear, and there’d be no better time to turn their season around than this weekend.