Which Phillips Would We Rather Have?.
Morecambe welcomed high-flying Barnsley to the Mazuma Stadium this afternoon for the first league encounter between the two clubs ever. The former members of the Premiership arrived in sixth position in League One. Their recent league form was: three games won and one lost, with a draw in their most recent match at lovely Bolton Wanderers last Saturday. The two previous meetings between the clubs both happened in Yorkshire in the League Cup. The Shrimps caused a shock when they won at Oakwell 0-2 eleven years ago and ran the Tykes close again in 2017, when they lost only by the odd goal in seven which was scored in the very last minute.
Morecambe went into the game on the back of three losses, one win and a draw in their last five league games. With unlucky thirteen games played, they have still to accrue double-digit points – they only have eight – and sat right at the bottom of League One prior to the fixture today.
Former Burnley loanee to Morecambe Adam Phillips was promoted to the first team today for a change following his permanent transfer to the Tykes earlier this year. He told his club’s website the following a couple of days ago:
“I’ve played at Morecambe, it’s a tough place to go. They’re at the bottom of the league, but that doesn’t mean anything really. They’ve got a good fanbase, they stick behind them. In this league, every game is tough. We’ve got to go there with the mentality that it won’t be an easy game. They played Ipswich at home a couple of weeks ago, who are flying at the minute. They only just scraped past them. It won’t be an easy game. We’ll have to go there with the performances that we’ve been giving away from home recently. There’s still quite a few players there, it is still the same manager. I know a few of the lads that are still there – they’re a good group. They stick together, even when they’re at the bottom. I don’t think they’ve ever been relegated from the league. It’ll be a tough game. I don’t think the lads have ever played at Morecambe, so I’ll have to tell them what it’s going to be like. It won’t be as easy as the league position says.”
His Head Coach, Michael Duff, assessed the task confronting his team today in these terms:
“We don’t focus on outside noise. Football is a game based on opinions. One thing we do know, Derek’s teams are hard to beat. They’ve only lost five games, I think. We’ve lost four. They’re bottom of the league but they’re hard to beat. The year they got promoted from the play-offs I think they averaged 36-37% possession – they’re not bothered about possession. There always seems to be a good spirit there.”
Before the game, Derek Adams said about Barnsley – and other teams used to playing in higher divisions than League One:
“Over the years, these clubs have been in the Championship. You only have to look how many have been in the Championship that are in League One. A number have been in the Premier League as well. What I would say is, we’re fighting against a group of teams down the bottom of the table and we can’t concern ourselves with the teams at the top. We’re going to have to shock a few some times this season. We’ve got to go up against them and try and get the better of them. We have missed some of our players who can be creative and open doors, the likes of Caleb Watts and Hunter who we’ve missed for large periods. We’ve missed Stockton for six games of the season, Obika’s been away for the last three, Gnahoua’s missed the last three, we’ve got Taylor who’s out, they’re all players in that forward area. It always affects confidence because you feel that you’re not getting anywhere when you probably deserve to get somewhere. There will come a time when it will all click together. We will get the players coming back. We will go on a run and get ourselves in a much better position.”
It had been unseasonably sunny in North Lancashire and quite warm with it before, during and after the game. The teams ran out in front of a bumper crowd and the first thing of note was that Barnsley appeared to have forgotten their Away strip today. So they played in red. Morecambe thus had to wear their dark blue Away strip. For people with a small brain cell like me, this was quite disorientating for the first few minutes.
The Reds (er – Barnsley) had the first chance of the game after just three minutes. Josh Benson – who won September’s League One Goal of the Month for a long-range strike against Charlton – headed a cross from the Tykes’ right quite tamely at Connor Ripley in the home goal. Five minutes later, they were off down the right again. Tom Edwards slung a cross over; Nickey Cadden connected it and Ripley stopped it as a standing leg deflected it away for a corner. I doubt he knew much about it but you have to be in the right place at the right time – and he was. Today, in the absence of dropped Donald Love, he was Team Captain. For me, this was the best game he has yet played for the club. His domination of the penalty area was much improved; he pulled-off a couple of excellent saves and – most of all – his distribution was at last really good today.
It was a pretty even game for the first half an hour or so. The nearest the hosts came to opening the scoring was in the twenty-sixth minute when Cole the Goal fired a long throw-in by deserved Man of the Match Ryan Cooney right out of the ground. Two minutes later, Josh Martin dragged a shot narrowly wide for the visitors after some clever approach play which the men in the dark blue strip stood off and allowed to happen. Apart from those, there were few chances for either sides for quite some time after this but the game was always good to watch with some fluent moves from both teams. The key moment of the game arrived in the thirty-ninth minute, however. Cooney took another long throw from the Shrimps’ right; the men from Yorkshire failed to clear their lines and Kieran Phillips turned the ball home from close range.
Just before the break, another Howitzer from Ryan caused further problems for the Tykes’s defence but big Central Defender Liam Kitching managed to clear it for a corner kick. Cooney made a simply superlative tackle in his own penalty area to stop a promising attack for the visitors with two minutes of injury time played. This was virtually the last action of the half though and the visitors trailed off back to the Dressing Rooms one goal in arrears.
Ryan Cooney was hurt after about half an hour when he collided with the advertising hoardings behind the home goal – Ouch! He was treated off the field and it was good to see the entire home crowd applaud long-serving Physiotherapist Simon Farnworth as he returned to the dug-out after he treated the injured defender in one of his last actions on behalf of the club.
If anybody expected a reaction from Barnsley once the game restarted, they were to be disappointed. Benson tried his luck with a long-range shot which missed after fifty minutes. Ripley then did brilliantly to paw a powerful long-range shot from Benson over the bar with a strong hand as he made a tremendous leap high to his left with just over an hour played. Apart from that, though, they offered very little threat. As for Morecambe, they fell back too far at times in my humble opinion as the match got older but the changes the Manager made to the team later in the game meant that they always looked a threat on the counter-attack and managed to compress the play much further up the field towards the end of the game.
So Morecambe ended the match in the very unusual position of victors – their first League One win at this venue since April. They deserved it. Derek told us that it was just a matter of time before things clicked – and they certainly did today.
I was severely critical of Adam Phillips’ languid and uncommitted performances last season for Morecambe until Derek Adams returned. In his namesake Kieran, though, I think the club has unearthed not only a significant upgrade but a potential gem. His commitment to the Morecambe cause has been obvious since the day he first pulled on a Shrimps’ shirt. He’s been unlucky not to score more goals than he has and the goal he scored today to win the game for the Shrimps was just rewards for his performances so far. Given that namesake Adam was taken off after an hour after a totally ineffectual performance for the Tykes, I know which Phillips I would personally prefer to have in the team.
Whatever, King Derek had this to say after the game:
“I thought the back three, back five and midfield competed ever so well. We closed down space, we got a foot in front and, later on in the game, we had a number of players getting in behind as well. Dylan came on, he gave us energy, so did Adam Mayor. The two up top were there to start with and we were able to change it about. I thought Fané in the middle of the park was immense, breaking things down, harassing players as well, and that all added to the performance. I think today, we deserved the three points, we played very well, we competed well which we had to because we were coming up against strong opposition just joining from the Championship.”
So it was a great day for everyone connected with Morecambe Football Club. If you follow the link below, you will see a photo of the man who might have a significant input into the way things could develop for the club in the future. Speculation is rife. Maybe he will appointed as the next Prime Minister of Great Britain as well. Well – he couldn’t do any worse, could he? But will he bankroll the Shrimps in the way so many people are suggesting at the moment? Time will tell…
All the details of this season’s campaigns by Morecambe football club – including last Tuesday’s loss in the Pizza Trophy at Harrogate – can be found at:
Morecambe: 1 Connor Ripley(C); 4 Liam Gibson; 5 Farrend Rawson; 6 Ryan Delaney; 8 Ousmane Fané; 9 Cole Stockton (Y) (11 Dylan Connolly (Y) 80’); 15 Jensen Weir (22 Anthony O’Connor 80’);16 Jacob Bedeau; 20 Liam Shaw (Y); 21 Ryan Cooney (Y); 23 Kieran Phillips (25 Adam Mayor 85’).
Subs not used: 12 Adam Smith; 2 Donald Love; 17 Caleb Watts; 18 Shane McLoughlin.
Barnsley: 40 Bradley Collins; 3 Thomas Edwards (Y); 5 Liam Kitching; 6 Mads Andersen; 7 Nicky Cadden (C); 10 Josh Benson; 14 Josh Martin; 24 Robbie Cundy (Y) (26 Ziyad Larkeche 84’); 30 Adam Phillips (27 Jack Aitchison 58’); 44 Devante Cole; 48 Luca Connell (8 Herbie Kane 45’).
Subs not used: 1 Jack Walton; 15 Jasper Moon; 29 Fabio Jalo; 31 Slobodon Tedic.
Ref: Simon Mather.
Att: 5,270 (A magnificent 1,756 from Yorkshire).
