Top three spot at risk - Shrewsbury's Graham Coughlan

Graham Coughlan's Shrewsbury Town have 10 league games left to play

Shrewsbury Town captain Graham Coughlan believes that back-to-back defeats may have cost his team automatic promotion.

Town have slumped to eighth, six points off the League Two top three, after losing 3-0 at struggling Grimsby and then at home to leaders Rochdale.

"Maybe the last couple of games have cost us an automatic promotion place," Coughlan told BBC Radio Shropshire.

"Although it's still there for us, we need to consolidate our play-off place and then look at the top three."

Eighth-placed Town, who have 55 points from 36 games, are in almost the same position as they were 12 months ago when they were lying seventh with 10 games left on 56 points.

A run of draws cost them this time last year, as they drew seven of their last 10 matches.

The beaten finalists only sneaked into the play-offs on the final day in the end thanks to two wins from their last three games. And Coughlan admits: "We don't want it to be that close again this season.

"We need to take it one game at a time and the Aldershot game is really important," added the 35-year-old defender.

Shrewsbury travel to Aldershot this Saturday (20 March, 1500 GMT), when they will come up against former Town players Omer Riza and Ben Herd.