'It is different here': David Wheeler outlines Shrewsbury mentality amid relegation dogfight

The 37-year-old midfielder arrived at Salop last week as a free agent, having left previous club Wycombe Wanderers in January.

Wheeler, who has well over 550 senior appearances to his name, was a key part of Salop boss Gareth Ainsworth's successful sides during his days at Adam Park, and joined former Wycombe players Dominic Gape and Jamal Blackman at the Croud Meadow.

He made his debut as a second half substitute in last weekend's defeat to Stevenage - as Salop were left seven points adrift of safety in League One.

The experienced operator comes into Salop having played a part in teams fighting for survival in the past.

And the midfielder has explained that there is a difference between the struggling dressing rooms he has been in earlier in his career, compared to the upbeat one he has walked into at Salop.

He said: "I think in my career I have been in most situations, I've been in relegation battles, I've been relegated, stayed up on the last day of the season, I've been promoted, lost play-off finals, won and lost cups, so I have done most scenarios.

"I think to a large extent it is about remaining calm and positive in most scenarios.

"Inevitably times are going to get tough, but it is about staying connected and being together regardless of what is going on.

"Having that connection between players is key and not having a blame culture, having a culture of looking at what has gone wrong, bouncing back and doing better next time.

"When I was in the Championship with Gaz at Wycombe, throughout the whole season he was coming in every day saying we were going to stay up.

"And if everyone had believed him for the whole season then we would have done. We only ended up going down by one point in the end, so I think if everyone adopts that mentality early enough and believes, then it feels we will do something positive.

"It is a good environment, I have been in similar positions at clubs and the atmosphere is awful, really down, really moody and dejected and it hasn't been like that here.

"It think if it gets like that then you are clearly in trouble, but it isn't like that at the moment.

"While Gaz is here, that mentality will stay the same and it will not sink, we will keep going until the final day."

Salop have 13 games left to turn their season around, with a number of their upcoming games coming against teams just above them in the table.

For Wheeler, he is only thinking about what Salop can control and believes that however the fight for survival goes, it doesn't matter if it goes right down to the wire.

He added: "I think certainly it almost always goes down to the last game or two.

"It is very easy to get five or six games out with a large points gap and thing it is over, in my experience it very rarely is.

"It is important to remember that this far out every goal, action, point counts.

"It is about getting into the mindset of everything counts, and contributing towards that means staying up.

"Even if we are only over that line for the last minute of the last game, that is enough. We don't have to be out of it with five games to go, but we need to keep in touch.

"We just need to do what we can do to the maximum, that is all we can do and hopefully it will be through.

"If we keep improving between now and the end of the season then I believe we will stay up."