Bolton Wanderers will travel to New Meadow for the first of (at least) two trips this season in what will be a friendly encounter before the two sides meet next month in the Capital One Cup. Wanderers are coming off a rusty yet still disappointing loss at Rotherham United's New York Stadium in their first match of the summer while Shrews are coming off a strong 2-0 win at Liverpool's development squad. Prior to that, Shrews lost 3-0 at home to a Galatasaray first team with goals coming from Emre Colak, Nordin Amrabat, and Wesley Sneijder.
This friendly should have been a bit of a homecoming for young Bolton striker Tom Eaves, who spent a month-and-a-half on loan at Shrews last season. In the ten games that Eaves played, he managed an impressive six goals with half of them coming in one game against Crawley Town. Eaves aggravated a toe fracture that was previously undiscovered while on a walking vacation in Brazil, keeping him out of Bolton's pre-season.
Shrews were promoted from League Two following the 2011/12 season and narrowly survived bouncing back down last season with a 16th place finish. Graham Turner's side had recently secured the signing of Akwasi Asante on a one-month loan (with option to extend). Asante, a 20-year-old, former Birmingham City striker, spent part of the 2013 season on loan with Town, scoring once in seven appearances. That said, his 2013/14 is already off to a flying start, scoring in the aforementioned 2-0 win at Liverpool.
Speaking to Shrewsbury Town's website, manager Graham Turner opened up about the pre-season friendly:
"We had a chat about it, we had arranged this pre-season game and, sod's law, we were then paired together in the cup. I was keen to still go ahead with it and they were equally keen to keep this match on so we both agreed there was no problem with playing each other in the cup a few weeks later. I want to see further improvement in the team play and further improvement in the fitness."
Additionally, the Shrews site interviewed Connor Goldson, a 20-year-old striker that came through the club's academy:
"The games that we've played so far have been hard games.
"Both Galatasaray and Liverpool under-21s like to pass the ball and keep a good shape but hopefully this will be more on our wavelength, the kind of football that they play.
"It should be more suitable to us and hopefully we can give a good account of ourselves and get a good result."
Goldson also took a moment to discuss Tom Eaves' time at Shrews:
"Tom did well when he came here last season," said Goldson. "He's a goalscorer and on his day he can be very hard to handle. He's got everything.
"Obviously he's still very young but if he puts all that together he's got a very good career ahead of him."