PHIL Parkinson is playing a balancing act as City head into their first home game of the season.

They host Shrewsbury tomorrow with more changes expected to the starting line-up.

Parkinson is still building towards what he believes will be the strongest side as well as giving his squad much-needed minutes on the pitch.

He said: “The skill at the moment for me and the rest of the coaching staff is to get some points on the board while we get everyone up to speed.

“Places are up for grabs and people made a claim the other night.

“We’re just trying to pick the best team we can for each game up to now and give ourselves a good chance of getting the points. Nothing changes.

“Planning in terms of playing people at the right time is important and that’s what we are doing.

“I think the majority of our supporters can identify with what we are doing and probably, like me, enjoying watching the team emerge and form into hopefully a successful side.”

Newly-promoted Shrewsbury arrive at Valley Parade on the back of a Capital One Cup win over Blackburn but Parkinson added: “We’ve had them watched but we’re concentrating on ourselves really.

“We’re trying to take the good aspects out of our play from the games so far and build on that.

“There have been costly moments, like the (missed) penalties, but I don’t think anyone can argue that there have been good signs.”

After spot-kick blunders from Billy Clarke and Alan Sheehan so far, Parkinson has decided on a penalty taker but is keeping it quiet.

But he felt it was right that Sheehan stepped up against York ahead of other team-mates keen to have to go.

“Alan took a lot of pressure penalties into his career so I don’t think anyone could question the decision to let him take it.

“When the penalty was awarded, other people might have wanted to take it which is fine. But Alan had a good record in those situations.

“We’re looking forward to playing at home again. It’s been a long time and we’ve got a better pitch now.

“We’d have loved to have come into the game on the back of a win on Tuesday but we gave everything to achieve that and it wasn’t our day.”

He also confirmed that getting personal terms agreed with the centre half City are after is “taking longer than we anticipated.”