Shrewsbury Town Ladies’ Technical Director Peter Wilson says preseason has been very tough on the squad this summer, but will stand them in good stead going into the new season.
Under new boss Alex Owens, Town have reported back for preseason with a new regime in place, focusing hard on the physical side of the game as they aim for a promotion winning season in the West Midlands Regional Women’s League Division One North and a three year plan to reach the FA Women’s Premier League.
Providing an update on how the summer had been going, Wilson said: “We took the hard approach, we want to make sure that we excel this season.
“I think that’s what it’s always about and what we’ve set out in terms of where we want to be in terms of the three year plan.
“So we’ve had to be a little bit hard-line with them.
“We’ve really hit the fitness side as we feel it’s a massively key element in terms of the league we’re in.
“And with the youth we’ve got, we need to get them ready for adult football and obviously with the fixture programme that we’ve got coming up it will aid that.
“We’ve also been doing a lot on our technical work, we want to make sure that we’re able to keep hold of that ball for long periods of time.
“If we do that at the level we’re playing at then we’ll fare very, very well.
“We want to win that league and get that promotion so it has been hard.
“But the players have responded fantastically well, they’ve all bought into what we’re doing more and more as the weeks have gone on which is great to see.
“There is a real unity about the team that has started to develop.”
Town have faced some tough tests against the likes of Wolves, West Brom and Aston Villa over the last few weeks, and Wilson feels the level of opposition has helped the players kick on.
“What we’ve wanted to see is our shape develop as well as the way we want to play, and with our fixtures we made it extremely difficult and met five Premier League clubs,” he said.
“We wanted to make it as difficult as we could, just because when we hit the league season we will know what it’s like at a high level.
“The intensity will be higher in terms of how we play, which will fare us well in the league.
“It’s been a tough month for everyone involved, but it’s one that everyone has bought into.”
Town’s first competitive game of the season is an FA Cup first round qualifier with Wolverhampton Sporting Community at Shrewsbury College on 3rd September.