LEAGUE TWO. WEDNESDAY, 1st JANUARY 2025.

100% Record for Morecambe in 2025.

It’s a mere four weeks since Morecambe last played Tranmere Rovers in a League Two fixture. On a literally freezing and stormy night on the Wirral, Derek Adams’ men fluked a 2-2- draw after playing well in the first half and then totally disintegrating during the second. Today’s latest would be the fourteenth meeting between the two clubs. In previous encounters, both of them have won five but the Shrimps have had the Indian Sign over Rovers in recent years. Morecambe beat them during 2021 in the League Two Play-Off semi final to finally achieve promotion to League One. They also won home and away last season against them, most memorably at Prenton Park as Ged Brannan’s Morecambe came from 2-0 down to win the game right at the death with a fantastic third goal direct from a free-kick.

Tranmere arrived in nineteenth place in League Two on the back of just one win and three defeats in their last six matches. They were only five points better-off then the Shrimps but have played two games fewer. So today was the day Derek Adams’ men really needed to break their Home Hoodoo – no wins at the Mazuma Mobile Stadium so far this season – in order to both improve their standing right at the very bottom of the entire Football League but also to pull Nigel Adkins’ faltering side deeper into the relegation mire themselves.

Prior to the game, the King of Morecambe expressed these thoughts about the fixture:

“We’ve got Tranmere at home who at this moment in time are slightly above us in the league table. We went away from home there and drew 2-2. This time, we’ve got to go one better than that and take the victory. We know we’ll have a huge backing at the game on New Year’s Day. We’ve got a team who know how to win games away from home – we still need to do that at home now. We’ve been really competitive in the league; we probably feel we should have a lot more points than we do. We’ve made a lot of individual errors. We haven’t taken chances when they’ve come along. So in the second half of the season, we have to be better at these aspects – not making the mistakes and be more ruthless in front of goal. We will have a huge crowd here and we want to send them home happy. We have to. We have to pick-up three points to close the gap between ourselves and the ones above us. If we do that, it becomes extremely tight between a whole host of teams in the bottom half of the table.”

I’ve not been able to find any comments by Rovers Manager Nigel Adkins before the game. But there is obviously Trouble at t’Mill at Prenton Park currently. On the Tranmere Rovers Supporters Association site on Facebook, for instance, I found this posting by a Paul Banks which is hardly a ringing endorsement of their current boss:

“You know it’s interesting looking at Adkins recent managerial record in that what we are seeing here is maybe not a surprise. In 4 of his last 5 jobs he has only managed a win record of roughly 33%. He was sacked at Reading after a 6-1 defeat left them mired in the bottom half of the league (and I do have to post his final post match comments after that game)…

Reading manager Nigel Adkins: “It was very, very close in terms of the game but it wasn’t in terms of the scoreline. Goals change the complex of games, we came here to be positive, started well and their keeper made a couple of early saves. But then they scored, and from our point of view they scored goals which we like to think we should stop. We’ll reflect on it.”

He was sacked at Sheff Utd with them in their lowest league position since 1983 (the next season they won the league on 100pts). At Charlton he was sacked with them in a terrible league position and facing relegation.

He does seem like a manager that’s living off his early success at Scunthorpe and Southampton, whereas more recently he’s not really succeeded anywhere he’s been and it especially seems the case (that) things fall apart after he gets an initial bounce for a few months when appointed.”

The weather in north Lancashire over the New Year period has been windy and really wet and today was no exception. Tranmere started brightly on the soggy pitch and Harry Saunders get away on the right flank within a minute and could – and probably should – have done better as he ran half the length of the field only to see his final shot relatively easily saved by namesake Burgoyne in the home goal.  Six minutes later, Sam Finley sent over a corner from the Tranmere right which Jordan Turnbull headed well over the bar from a promising position. Two minutes later, visiting goalkeeper Luke McGee was forced into action when he did well to keep out a Gwion Edwards effort. On twenty minutes, Sol Soloman got away from the Shrimps’ defence but lobbed a poor effort over the home goalkeeper and onto the top of the net instead of into it. There were a few other half-chances at both ends after that but the clearest opening so far occurred during the forty-third minute when Callum Jones showed both determination and some skill on the edge of the penalty area before unleashing a tremendous shot which McGee did really well to keep out. Right at the end of the first half, Marcus Dackers seemed to be brought-down in the away penalty area and it seemed to me at least that Referee John Mulligan pointed to the spot. But the Man in the Middle – who made some very strange decisions throughout the game – was apparently indicating a mere goal kick. So the half ended scoreless with both sides having had chances but Morecambe probably slightly dominating the game.

The second half followed a similar pattern to the first with neither side getting on top until the hosts scored after seventy-two minutes. Dackers – who had been a handful for Rovers all afternoon – received the ball on the left edge of the penalty area from his point of view following a corner which the visitors struggled to clear. He looked up and then floated a  perfect cross right onto Yann Songo’o’s head at the far post and the Shrimps’ Captain Fantastic did the rest. As Tranmere struggled to respond, McGee was at full stretch again after eighty minutes to keep out a header from Rhys Williams. There were just six minutes scheduled to play when Jamie Scott made the game safe for the Shrimps when he fairly hammered the ball home from close range after the visitors had again failed to deal properly with a corner kick.

So that was it – a first home win for the Shrimps this season and a perfect start to 2025: maximum points and no goals conceded. With Carlisle losing 3-2 at Crewe in injury time after having led with ninety minutes played and Swindon winning with a ninety-eighth minute penalty at home against Colchester, Morecambe’s three points only pushed them one place up the League Two table to sit in the highest of the relegation positions. They remain four points shy of Swindon but just two behind today’s opponents and Accrington – who beat Grimsby 3-2 in east Lancashire this afternoon. Derek Adams will also have his sights set on Harrogate Town, who lost 0-2 at home to Salford this afternoon and are on a catastrophic run of form with only one point to show from the potential last eighteen.

Nigel Adkins must be worried about his position at Tranmere as they fell to twenty-first in League Two and have now won only one of their last eight league fixtures.

King Derek, on the other hand, was understandably delighted with his team’s performance this afternoon:

“A second win in the last three games which is really important against the teams that are round about us in the league table. I thought it was a very good performance from us today.  We created some really good openings – we probably should have been ahead at half time to be honest. We know we’ve got good players in the side; today we got our just deserts.”  

Morecambe:  1 Harry Burgoyne; 2 Luke Hendrie; 4 Tom White (Y); 6 Jamie Stott; 7 Gwion Edwards (3 Adam Lewis 78’); 14 Rhys Williams; 18 Ben Tollitt (11 Jordan Slew 78’); 19 Marcus Dackers (9 Hallam Hope 90’); 23 David Tutonda; 24 Yann Songo’o(C); 28 Callum Jones.

Subs not used: 21 Alfie Scales; 5 Max Taylor; 22 Ross Millen 26 Lennon Dobson.

Tranmere Rovers: 1 Luke McGee; 3 Zak Bradshaw (4 Brad Walker 89’); 5 Tom Davis; 6 Jordan Turnbull; 7 Keiron Morris; 17 Sam Finley (Y); 14 Kristian Dennis 89’); 18 Connor Jennings (C); 19 Harvey Read Saunders (Y) (10 Josh Davison 62’); 21 Sol Soloman (28 Saidou Khan 64’); 22 Lee O’Connor (Y) (2 Cameron Norman 89’); 30 Omari Patrick

Subs not used: 25 Reuben Egan; 35 Declan Drysdale.

Ref: John Mulligan.

Att: 3,577 (Including about 700 very vociferous Tranmere supporters.)