SHREWSBURY Town manager Micky Mellon says that he sees plenty of parallels between his team and Swindon Town the two sides prepare to lock horns this weekend.

Swindon and the Shrews last met on the final match of last season, with Luke Williams’ men cruising to a comfortable victory over their counterparts, although Mellon’s side had already seen the threat of relegation to League Two killed off eight days previous.

The League One table may still be in its embryonic stages but both teams have endured stuttering starts to the season, with Swindon 18th and Saturday’s hosts four places in lower in the drop zone.

Mellon believes that the main similarities lie in how both outfits approach the game but also warned his fans not to get rattled if Williams’ troops dominate the ball more freely.

“Swindon will be another tough game,” Mellon told ShrewsWeb.

“They like to play football the right way and we will be hoping to put our mark on the game. They play a similar formation and style to us and they like to free up the spare man in the back three and build from the back.

“But, on the flip side, it’s important that when they do free up the spare man, I hope that people see that we accept that sometimes that is going to happen, but off that next pass, it’s important that, to a man, we anticipate that next pass and we go and try and press that ball aggressively, and try and win it back.

“It’s important that we do that in order regain possession and allow us to play our own game, and if we can do that, then we can make it difficult for them as well.”

Mellon also believes that his team have been consistently competitive so far this term, despite a less-than-satisfactory string of results.

He said: “I think we’ve been consistently in every game that we’ve taken part in and I would argue with anybody that the performances have been very close, and very tight with anybody that we’ve played against.

“And, as happens when two teams come up against each other in this division, it is usually one or two moments that decide the games, which again, is very frustrating, but it’s a massive improvement on last year, because I can show you not just two moments, but a half where we weren’t in the race.

“Cut out the errors, do the bits that we know we’ve got to get better at and (we) just get what everybody wants, and that’s a winning team.”