LEAGUE TWO. SATURDAY, AUGUST 31st 2024.

Moore Stu-pidity at Morecambe hands Newport the match.

It’s been a really tough start for Derek Adams’ Morecambe and their League Two campaign. So far, they have played away at third-placed Walsall followed by a home game against leaders Gillingham. Next, they travelled again to sixth-placed Doncaster. Today, they were due to face old foes Newport County, currently riding high in the division in fifth place.

So far, Morecambe have lost every one of the games they have played by the only goal of each contest. So they started this afternoon’s encounter in rock bottom position in the EFL; the only club in League Two without a point and – even more worryingly – the only team except Crewe not to have scored even a single goal so far.

King Derek, though, remains very optimistic about his new team’s chances.  After a howler by goalkeeper Stuart Moore which cost his team the match against Donny last time out, he claimed – rightly – that his side had been the better one in the second half and probably deserved a point out of the game. Against Gillingham, Morecambe were the better team throughout and should have won the match: it was a classic Smash & Grab by the league leaders. At the end of the Doncaster game, Mr Adams said the following:

“Overall, I’m really happy with the progress we are making. It’s a new team but we are getting better week-on-week. The players are getting to know each other – they are working ever so hard. The time will come when we are going to get the victories and move up the league table. I know we have been defeated one-nil but performance-wise, to see the understanding that the players have – in and out of possession – is very good. We’re slowly getting there. From my point of view, over the next number of weeks, we will keep on improving.”

So today was a chance to prove it. Since our South Wales opponents appointed new coach – Nélson Marques Jardim – during the summer, there has been a clear-out at Newport. Our Old Boy Shane McLoughlin and fans’ favourite Aaron Wildig have survived this but the Exiles’ Portuguese Manager has signed no less than fifteen new players. Although they lost their first game of the season by the odd goal in five at Cheltenham, County bounced back and beat Donny 3-1 after going behind in their second. Last Saturday, they beat Accrington Stanley by the same score at Rodney Parade. Past meetings with the Shrimps have been memorable with, for instance, Aaron Wildig scoring two goals in his first encounter with Morecambe since he left as Newport won 5-3 at home to complete the double over us last season. Kevin Ellison notoriously let himself down with a very childish reaction to King Derek after scoring for the Exiles in a win in Lancashire during our promotion season three years ago. Derek commendably treated this with the contempt it deserved at the time. He had the last laugh, though, when Kev was left empty-handed and ignored on the touchline as his former team-mates celebrated their progression to League One at Wembley at County’s expense later in the year. Altogether, the clubs have met twenty times before and Morecambe have won nine of these clashes to Newport’s seven.

Mr Adams was quick to acknowledge Aaron Wildig’s contribution to Morecambe’s promotion season and admit that he was disappointed when Aaron decided to move away to be closer to his family instead of staying to compete in League One. As far as the team that Wildig now skippers, Derek added:

“We have to analyse them. We will have to play well on the day to overcome them. We are more than capable of doing that. On our day, we’ve got players who will certainly be dangerous.”

Opposite number Nélson Marques Jardim had the following to say about today’s clash:

“Oh eu gusto do ser au lado do mar!; Eu gusto do ser au lado do mar… Traga-me luz do sol no seu sorriso…”

Actually, I’ve no idea what he actually said because neither the Newport website nor their `X’ feed tells us. If I was him, I think I’d point out that whereas Newport are League Two’s highest scorers, Morecambe are… well, não disparando em todos os cilindros (er – not firing on all cylinders…)

Stop Press: I had a look at Newport’s media feeds again on the morning of the game to discover that Senor Jardim did have something to say after all. This is it:

“I’ve seen all three of Morecambe’s games and I think they’ve been a little bit unlucky. They lost one-nil in all of their league games. They’ve also played two away games which is always hard.  We expect it to be tough. They will be looking to get something from the game and it is our job to make sure we continue to be competitive and we hope to come out on top.”

It was a lovely summer’s day by the Lancashire coast today. As visitors to the Vintage Festival packed the town, relatively few of them bothered to turn-up to watch the team at the bottom of the football league.

The game kicked-off and – what can you say? Morecambe played some nice football at times against a team which performed in what seems to be the traditional Newport County way. I wonder if this has ever really changed since they won a place back in the EFL with a pretty muscular brand of football where finesse is hard to find and the Book of Black Arts is their primary source of reference. From the moment they took the lead, County took every opportunity imaginable – plus several that weren’t – to waste time. Goalkeeper Nick Townsend alone must have  used-up at least ten minutes unnecessarily diving on the ball instead of picking it up; feigning to pass to his defenders and then repeatedly waving them up-field before finally booting it long – and so on and so forth. But it worked today. Weak and officious Referee Declan Bourne was more interested in spraying his shaving foam all over the place and then pacing-out ten yards as Exiles players constantly encroached and further delayed play as he did absolutely nothing to stop them. He allowed far too many cynical or niggly fouls to go unpunished and he had no idea what to do when a proper altercation where an elbow might have been used happened on the touch-line during the first half. I don’t know what happened either – but Mr Bourne had a linesman standing just feet away from the incident who should have been able to tell him exactly what had just occurred. This incident caused both sets of players to converge on the half way line in front of the tunnel as handbags continued to be thrown and the total stoppage must have been at least four minutes. So why did the man in the middle only add-on two minutes at the end of the first half? To be fair, the Referee belatedly booked Townsend and then the visitors’ Manager for gamesmanship – but by the time he did so, the match was almost over and the game was effectively won.

As far as the contest itself was concerned, I haven’t had the benefit of a video replay yet and I still can’t believe what actually seemed to happen right in front of my eyes after just nine minutes. Under no discernible pressure whatsoever, goalkeeper Stuart Moore appeared to simply give the ball to Aaron Wildig and then look on in horror as our former Maestro took the ball round him and slid it into the net. Not even ten minutes on the clock. Stu thus set his team-mates a mountain to climb for the second game in a row – and they were unable to do so. So that’s two goals in two games which the man in yellow has now conceded – and six points he is personally responsible for literally throwing away. As the King said last week, you just can’t do that sort of thing at this level of football and get away with it.

At the other end, Townsend was far the busier stopper throughout the match. Between the play-acting and time wasting, he actually produced a phenomenal save from Gwion Edwards at point-blank range with forty-one minutes on the clock. By this time, our Official Man-of-the-Match had already created opportunities for himself on at least two occasions with his tremendous ball control and the ability to turn opposing players inside out. He dribbled his way into the away area after 22 minutes only to see his resulting shot go narrowly wide. Then he stole the ball from a dawdling County defender two minutes later but again just missed the target with a powerful strike. The altercation I referred to earlier resulted in Gwion and the pacy Courtney Baker-Richardson both being booked. Whether this is because they had been involved in the argy-bargy which went on or because of something they might have said to the incompetent with the whistle, I simply can’t say. However, I can claim with absolute confidence that the only other player with anything like the skill the Welshman exhibited today was Mr Wildig, who was tremendous for the Exiles throughout. I have a theory that if he could have been persuaded to stay, Morecambe would never have been relegated from League One. But we shall never know if that could have been the case. What we do know, though, is that he was warmly applauded from the field by the home fans as he departed in injury time at the end of the game: a gesture he reciprocated as he turned and clapped the home end.

Jordan Slew had come close for the Shrimps as well after about twenty minutes, when Townsend seemed to lose sight of a superb strike which flew just over the bar. In the second half, I at least thought that Morecambe had finally broken their duck for the season when Hallam Hope put the ball in the net after fifty-five minutes. But the linesman’s flag put an abrupt stop to the celebrations. Two minutes later, Callum Jones forced the visiting keeper to make another good save as Townsend managed to push his superb free-kick over the bar for a corner. As Newport offered virtually nothing going forward, Morecambe put on a lot of pressure as the match came towards its conclusion. Substitute Lee Angol gave the away defence a number of headaches and the Exiles conceded quite a few corner kicks. But – at the end of the day – it was the same old story: a one-nil defeat for the Shrimps.

This was not a bad display by Derek Adams’ men. But the cutting edge they clearly sorely need is missing. Hallam Hope looked ponderous, too slow to react to developing situations and far too easily bullied off the ball for most of the game. To be fair to him, though, he was offered no protection at all by the hopeless referee and frequently simply found himself outnumbered by opposing players when he had got control of the ball. Is he unfit? Carrying an injury? Lacking confidence? Not good enough for this level of football? Or all of these things? Angol was more effective when he replaced Hope in the second half but Derek seems to be pinning his own hopes on ending the Shrimps’ goal drought on Salford City’s 21-year-old Centre Forward Marcus Dackers, who has signed on-loan for the rest of the season. Hopefully, he can help to move Morecambe away from the foot of the EFL, where they still languish tonight. Their unwanted claim to notoriety is that they are now the only team – with Crewe winning 1-2 at Bromley this afternoon – not to have scored even a single goal in the four matches completed so far. County, meanwhile, go up to fourth in League Two.

What did the Manager make of today’s latest defeat?:

“We’ve obviously made another huge error. The goalkeeper’s taken a bad touch and allowed their midfielder to score a goal. Exactly the same as last week. We spoke to the defenders – not to pass it back to him because last week was a huge error; this week’s another huge error. It’s allowed them to get a one-nil win. Overall, I thought we were excellent from start to finish in the game. We also feel that their centre forward should have been sent off for an elbow on Gwion Edwards. We missed a host of opportunities today. Take nothing away from their goalkeeper – he made a number of outstanding saves. We had a couple of opportunities to put the ball in the goal. He threw out his left arm and made a magnificent save. He’s kept them in the game. It’s a story of two goalkeepers today.”

Morecambe: 25 Stuart Moore; 2 Luke Hendrie; 6 Jamie Stott; 7 Gwion Edwards (Y); 8 Harvey Macadam (17 Paul Lewis 65’); 9 Hallam Hope (10 Lee Angol 65’); 11 Jordan Slew (18 Ben Tollitt 65’); 14 Rhys Williams; 23 David Tutonda (Y) (3 Adam Lewis 75’); 24 Yann Songo’o (C) (Y) (4 Tom White 92’); 29 Callum Jones.

Subs not used: 1 Harry Burgoyne; 22 Ross Millen.

Newport County: 1 Nick Townsend (Y); 3 Anthony Glennon; 4 Matt Baker; 6 Ciaran Brennan; 7 Bobby Kanwa (Y) (17 Kieron Evans 76’); 8 Bryn Morris (30 Noah Mawene 60’); 9 Courtney Baker-Richardson (Y); 11 Cameron Antwi; 19 Shane McLoughlin; 23 Kyle Jameson; 24 Aaron Wildig (C) (26 Corey Evans 96’).

Subs not used: 13 Jacob Carney; 10 Oliver Greaves; 18 Kiban Rai; 23 31 Luke Jephcott; 29 Nelson Sanca..

Ref: Declan Bourne.

Att: 2,724 (A couple of hundred from Newport.)