Brewers’ Product Goes Flat
Before we go any further, let’s send Best Wishes to Les Dewhirst – Morecambe’s Kitman for as long as virtually anyone can remember – who suffered a heart attack during the game at Wigan Athletic two weeks ago. He was operated on at Wythenshaw Hospital later in the day and has started the long road back to recovery. I personally wish Les all the best – I have personally recovered from major heart surgery myself and therefore know that it can be a long and potentially difficult process. I hope his road to recovery is short and without too many turns in it.
Burton Albion and Morecambe have met fourteen previous times in the EFL. As non-league teams, Burton were unable ever to beat Morecambe but things have changed since they entered League Two in 2009. They have won eight of the subsequent fixtures – most recently in the reverse fixture last October, where Albion won by the odd goal in five. Morecambe, on the other hand, have managed to win just half that number: four.
The Brewers arrived in north Lancashire in seventeenth position in League One – far enough from the relegation positions to have no worries but also too far from the Play-Offs to entertain any realistic hopes of promotion. They have won only one of their last five league games and lost four; most recently 2-0 against Charlton in London two weeks ago. It was clearly a very feisty performance by Albion. Six of their players were booked and Tom Hamer was apparently lucky not to get a straight red card for a two-footed lunge within the first ten minutes. (In contrast, Charlton – with Sam Lavelle in the starting line-up – didn’t pick-up a single booking.) Whatever the misplaced commitment of his players, in a sense, however, Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink’s men had nothing to play for today – except not to get individually or collectively suspended…
The same could not be said for their opponents. Morecambe haven’t won any sort of football match since 22nd January this year. That’s twelve games ago. In their last two games alone, they have conceded nine goals. They have not kept a clean sheet for even longer than they have managed to win – fourteen games ago at AFC Wimbledon. In the six games that Derek Adams has been in charge, the Shrimps have picked-up a paltry two out of a potential eighteen points. This is not so much relegation as Kamikaze form.
Derek himself put on record before the Wigan game that he considered the squad he had in League Two to be stronger than the one he is having to work with now, a whole division higher. But having said all that, Morecambe could actually escape the relegation positions in the Division if they were able to win three points today and all of their rivals lost. Prior to the game, he made the joke that the enforced break from football recently had brought Morecambe’s longest unbeaten run of the season. He also he explained his hopes for the seven games which remain between now and the final match against Sunderland:
“I think we’ll definitely need three wins between now and the end of the season. That would take us over the forty point mark – and I see other teams being able to do that. We’ll have to win a good number of our games remaining. We haven’t done that for a long period of time now and it’ something (with which) we have to galvanise the squad.”
Midfield dynamo Aaron Wildig – on whose shoulders a lot of responsibility will fall if Morecambe are to survive in League One – expressed his own view of what is needed in these simple terms earlier in the week:
“Let’s look forward to Saturday. There’s three points on offer. I know its’ a cliché in football but you’ve literally got to take one game at a time right now and put all your effort into getting three points in your next game.”
Derek completely shook things up today. Wildig took over the Captain’s armband from Anthony O’Connor – for whom there was no place in the starting line-up today – and the Irishman was replaced as Centre Half by Rhys Bennett. Greg Leigh didn’t feature either and Shane McLoughlin was relegated to the bench.
For the opposition, Manager Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink said prior to the match:
“There are no new injuries, everybody is fit. It will be a learning curve for us playing against teams that are fighting their hardest for points. There will be pressure because it is a must win for opponents, but we also want to win. These kind of situations are needed for our players and that is the same for (today’s) game. You can score goals, but knowing you concede a few can become a psychological problem for a team. We need to make sure that we can keep a clean sheet. We need a clean sheet, we are overdue one and I am confident (that) with one, we can go on and win the game. Clean sheets need to become a part of our game again. We need to look at ourselves before we look at our opponents, and it has been way too long since our last clean sheet.”
It was sunny but very cold as the game started. Right from kick-off, the home team went onto the front foot and Burton never seemed to have any answer to it. The Shrimps won a corner after four minutes and Ousmane Fané managed to get his head to it only for the Albion defence to clear. Adam Phillips then found Rhys Bennett’s head from a free kick after seven minutes but the central defender guided the ball wide of the target. From another corner, an effort by Aaron Wildig was blocked after just over quarter of an hour. The hosts came closer still with nineteen minutes on the clock when Fané’s low cross into the box drew a fantastic save from Ben Garrett in the Brewers’ goal to keep the game goal-less. With Dylan Connolly’s speed and skill posing problems for the visiting defence throughout, Garrett made another tremendous save – this time with his feet – to keep out Liam Gibson’s effort after half an hour. Albion were offering little going forward but continued to conceded corner after corner as the half grew older. A goal was becoming seemingly inevitable and it duly arrived with just four minutes of the first period still to play. Official Man of the Match Wildig found Arthur Gnahoua with a pinpoint pass in the centre of the field and his shot hit Sam Hughes and looped agonisingly over Garratt into the net. It was a bit lucky but there is no doubt that the Shrimps’ play until that point had deserved it.
Things rapidly got worse for the visitors. First, Conor Shaughnessy’s bone-juddering over-the-top tackle on fellow-Irishman Connolly led to a straight red card in the forty-first minute. Then – underlining the discipline problems which are clearly a real issue for the Brewers at the moment – Goalkeeping Coach Jake Kean was also sent off following an altercation on the touchline just a couple of minutes later. Assistant Morecambe Manager John McMahon who was also booked. To rub it in, the Shrimps then went even further ahead in injury time. This time, Cole Stockton’s precise through-ball was perfectly finished by Phillips as he bore down on the visiting goalkeeper and buried it low to his right. As a man, the entire Morecambe team ran over to Kitman Les to celebrate. This is itself is a perfect tribute to Les’ popularity at the club.
So the Shrimps returned to the Dressing Rooms at half time in the unusual position of being in the lead in a League One match.
Once the match restarted, it soon got even better. Virtually straight from kick-off, Gnahoua was attacking up the Morecambe left. He took a shot from just outside the penalty area which Garratt did well to parry. But the goalkeeper couldn’t hold the ball and it fell perfectly for Cole the Goal to register his twentieth League One strike of the season so far. As a contest, that was game, set and match to the men in the red shirts.
Garratt pulled-off another tremendous save from Phillips’ header after 53 minutes and the home team fashioned a number of other chances as well. Connolly might have scored after an hour after a lightning-fast break from his own half. He should have squared the ball to Cole but he chanced his arm instead and missed the target entirely. And so it went on.
Burton rallied a little before the end and Trevor Carson made at least one good save. But the hosts ended on the front foot and were very good value for the welcome three points this afternoon.
So: maximum points in the bag; Derek’s first win since he returned to the club and a clean sheet into the bargain. Could it get any better? Yes, it could: all the teams around Morecambe in the table could have lost as well. Well – actually, they couldn’t: Crewe and Fleetwood played each other and the Cod Army won 1-3 at Gresty Road. AFC Wimbledon lost, though, 2-1 at Sheffield Wednesday. Doncaster also lost again; this time 2-0 to Wycombe in Buckinghamshire.
The Morecambe Manager’s conclusion after the game was:
“It was a performance that I’m delighted with. I thought that the way we passed the ball; the way we created chances – is what we wanted to see. It was a terrific performance from us.”
His opposite number said this:
“Before the red card, we were still not in the game which is disappointing for us. We never calmed down on the ball which is something we practiced all week. That was the most disappointing thing for us.”
Despite the loss, Burton remained in seventeenth position in the table. Morecambe moved up a place to twenty-first. So there’s still all to play for: only two points separate nineteenth from twenty-first place in the Division tonight.
Morecambe: 30 Trevor Carson; 2 Ryan McLaughlin; 5 Jacob Bedeau; 9 Cole Stockton; 10 Aaron Wildig (C); 11 Dylan Connolly (Y); 18 Adam Phillips (17 Jonah Ayunga 84’); 22 Liam Gibson (21 Ryan Cooney 75’); 24 Arthur Gnahoua; 27 Ousmane Fané (8 Toumani Diagouraga 45’); 31 Rhys Bennett.
Subs Not Used: 41 Adam Smith; 14 Jonathan Obika; 16 Jacob Mensah; 19 Shane McLoughlin.
Burton Albion: 24 Ben Garratt; 2 John Brayford (C); 3 Cameron Borthwick-Jackson; 4 Deji Oshilaja (Y); 11 Jonny Smith; 12 Sam Hughes; 15 Christian Saydee (10 Harry Chapman 56’); 16 Conor Shaughnessy (R); 25 Ciaran Gilligan (23 Terry Taylor 67’); 31 Louis Moult (9 Adiène Gassan Ahadme 67’); 37 Tom Hamer.
Subs Not Used: 1 Matej Kovar; 8 Joe Powell; 40 Charlie Lakin.
Ref: Ross Joyce.
Att: 5,238 (228 from Burton).
