Midfielder George Dobson has challenged his side to find more consistency.
The Saddlers suffered a disappointing 3-0 home defeat by relegation-threatened Rochdale on Tuesday night – three days after recording an impressive 3-0 win at Southend.
We have won three, drawn two and lost three of the last eight games – and Dobson knows our consistency must improve if we are to climb higher up the table.
“That’s the one thing we need to get better at,” said the 20-year-old.
“We’ve put in some really good performances, where you’re playing and think ‘we’re a really good team and have some really good players’.
“But some games we haven’t matched up to that.
“Before Rochdale, we had the great win at Southend.
“Before that, we had Peterborough and Blackburn, which were both losses, but we put in really good performances.
“And before those, we were on a four-match unbeaten run.
“If we can find that consistency, we can be a very good team in this league.
“That’s the one problem at the minute and what we will continue to work on going forward.”
Dobson acknowledged the Saddlers “weren’t good enough” in the last match against Rochdale and must respond with a positive performance at Shrewsbury this weekend.
“After the great win at Southend, we were hoping to back it up with another good positive performance but we didn’t,” he said.
“Tuesday, for some reason, we didn’t play with the energy we had been playing with in the previous five of six games.
“We’re not going to hide away from that fact and say it was just a bad day – we weren’t good enough and didn’t deserve a result.
“We’ve got to bounce back for the massive game against Shrewsbury and give the fans something to shout about.”
Paul Hurst’s Shrewsbury have been this season’s package and currently occupy second place, five points behind leaders Blackburn.
The Saddlers played table-topping Rovers recently, going down to a 2-1 defeat despite producing a spirited second-half showing.
And Dobson says the players can take heart from the Blackburn performance heading into Saturday’s local derby.
“Shrewsbury are flying this year,” the ex-West Ham man commented.
“They’re near the top of the table and are our local rivals.
“It’s a similar game to Blackburn, who are also up there.
“The first half we weren’t quite at it but in the second half we came out and should have got at least a point against the team who are top of the league.
“That gives us a lot of confidence going into these kind of games, knowing we’re good enough to play against them.
“We’ll be taking a lot of fans and if we can go there and get a positive result, it’ll make everyone a lot happier.”