Morecambe Fail at Vale
Morecambe travelled to the Midlands and Burslem today to face newly-promoted Port Vale for this first time in League One ever. In previous meetings in various competitions, they have played each other twenty times before. The Shrimps have won seven of these and lost nine. The Valiants were twelfth in the table, having won two and lost two of their last five League One matches. Away from their league campaign, Port were knocked-out of the Pizza trophy thing when they lost at Salford last Tuesday night 2-1. However, they won their last League One game at Plymouth 0-2, where the Shrimps were beaten by the odd goal in three last Saturday.
Morecambe have now lost two of their last five league games and drawn the other three. They arrived at Vale Park right at the bottom of the table and a whole fourteen points behind the Port. They have lost ten games so far in their League One campaign – but Vale have lost only two fewer. The boss – Derek Adams – has insisted that the key to rescuing the team from north Lancashire for the second time in two seasons is to turn the many draws his men have been involved in so far into wins. Could they do so today? Before the game, King Derek told us:
“I would say every game is key – from the start of the season to the end of the season. From our point of view, we are looking forward to this period; three games in a short space of time. That gives us the opportunity to get points on board.”
Asked if he thought it would be possible to repeat the miracle he performed at Plymouth several years ago when he led them steadily from the bottom of the table at Xmas to almost the Play-Off positions by the end of the campaign, he replied:
“It would be disrespectful to other teams to talk about it in that way. Every game gives you the opportunity to gain points. We’ve shown already in the home games that we’ve played (that) we’ve been able to compete against the ones at the top end of the table and we’ve got some of the ones at the end bottom of the table around the Christmas period – and the middle of the table as well.”
Opposite Number Darrell Clarke explained that his team faced
“Three important games in a short space of time, starting with Morecambe on Boxing Day.
Nine points (are) up for grabs; the games will fly by with three in seven days – so we are looking forward to the challenges. Myself and the staff are busy preparing and keeping the focus on what it needs to be and making sure that we are as well conditioned and prepared as possible, but also putting behind us a couple of below par performances. Our last two performances haven’t hit the standards that we expect – and the group expects – so first and foremost it is trying to get back to a better performance, starting on Boxing Day.”
It was cold but sunny throughout the daylight hours as the match got under way on a really poor surface which started cutting-up right from the start of the game. Morecambe looked confident early doors and passed the ball quite well after winning the toss and playing towards their own supporters in the first half. Visiting stopper Connor Ripley was never seriously tested during the opening half hour of a pretty dreary contest of few chances. After just over a half an hour, though, Malvind Benning broke down the Port left and centred only for Ellis Harrison’s weak effort to be comfortably saved by the away keeper. Four minutes later, Ben Garrity’s deflected effort was pushed away for Vale’s first corner – which came to nothing.
At the other end, though, Opposite Number Jack Stevens must have had his heart in his mouth as Jensen Weir broke from midfield to the right of the penalty area from his point of view and slammed a tremendous shot just wide of the target into the side netting as the goalkeeper stood tall to protect his near post.
What I consider to be the key moment of the entire game arrived with 39 minutes on the clock. Good approach play saw a cross from the Shrimps’ left reaching full-back Max Melbourne close to the far post. He made a tremendous textbook header back to where it had come from and the ball beat Stevens only to agonisingly hit the inside of his left-hand post and bounce back into play. On another day – another season – it would have bounced into the net. But not today. If it had, well…
Football – as with life itself – has an awful lot to do with luck. This afternoon, Morecambe’s luck was out. From the rebound, the Valiants immediately counter-attacked on the break. The ball was fed up their left channel to Gavin Massey, who walloped a phenomenal shot past the despairing dive of Ripley to well and truly rub-in their own let-off at the other end of the pitch.
People talk about Lady Luck being absent when a team is in the mire and struggling to get out of it. I don’t by that. Today, we could all see the difference between a team which has a chance of battling its way out of a doomed position and one that can’t. Vale scored because the Shrimps were too slow collectively to respond to the rebound of Melbourne’s header. End of story.
The second half was pretty dreadful as well. I thought that the visitors were marginally the more creative team in the first half. But in the second one, virtually all the game was played in the Morecambe half. Derek Adams’ men just didn’t compete. Worse still, Captain Donald Love was sent-off during injury time for a frankly stupid foul on the impressive Ademipo Odubeko.
Morecambe were an absolute shambles for half of the match today. Worryingly too, Port Vale looked distinctly average opposition particularly in the first half. Unusually, a couple of members of the travelling support yelled abuse at the Manager as the match grew older but the team were roundly booed at the end of the game.
Their frustration was understandable today although I don’t personally think that booing your team does any good in any circumstances. This was a performance – particularly in the second half – which would not be good enough to keep Morecambe in League Two, let alone the Division they are currently in. They are now a whole seven points from safety. The club which occupies the lowest non-doomed position in the Division – Twentieth – is all-time Morecambe Bogy Team Accrington Stanley, who also have a game in hand on us. And guess who are the Shrimps’ next opponents in League One next Thursday night?
With the off-field problems concerning finances, Derek Adams is stuck between a rock and a hard place. He can’t get rid of the dead wood bequeathed to him by former boss Stephen Robinson until it will be too late the save the club from its first relegation ever. I personally just hope that he doesn’t walk away from his latest challenge. Even if – as seems increasingly inevitable – we go down for the first time ever, King Derek will bring us back up again. He remained characteristically positive when he said after the game:
“We haven’t had much breaks this season so far. There was an incident in that where Max hits the post and they quickly go up the park and get a goal on the counter-attack and that’s been fortunate for them for that because from my point of view, they didn’t really create much, Port Vale, in the game. We created some really good opportunities. We were unfortunate not to have drawn the game, never mind win the game.”
Port Vale: 25 Jack Stevens; 2 Lewis Cass (21 Ademipo Odubeko 69’); 3 Dan Jones; 6 Nathan Smith; 8 Ben Garrity; 10 Tom Conlon (Y) (9 James Wilson 87’); 11 Malvind Benning (Y); 17 Rory Holden (23 Tom Pett 57’); 19 Gavin Massey; 22 Ellis Harrison; 27 Sam Robinson ( 5 Connor Hall 45’).
Subs not used: 1 Aidan Stone; 5 Connor Hall; 14 Funso Ojo; 21 Ademipo Odubeko; 26 Daniel Butterworth.
Morecambe: 1 Connor Ripley; 2 Donald Love (C) (R); 3 Max Melbourne (Y); 4 Liam Gibson (Y); 5 Farrend Rawson (Y); 6 Ryan Delaney; 15 Jensen Weir (9 Cole Stockton 732); 16 Jacob Bedeau (11Dylan Connolly 92’); 20 Liam Shaw; 23 Kieran Phillips (17 Caleb Watts 79’); 25 Adam Mayor.
Subs not used: 12 Adam Smith; 14 Arthur Gnahoua; 21 Ryan Cooney; 22 Anthony O’Connor.
Ref: Simon Mather.
Att: 7,867 (337 from Morecambe.)
