Morecambe 0 Shrewsbury 0

[Keith]

Good atmosphere, let's hope for a great start!

[Keith]

I'll resize it when I get home!

[AndyReifman]

Let's go Shrimps!

I stupidly scheduled a party today so need to leave to go to that at some point (the wife somehow didn't accept my compelling argument that I didn't need to be at my own wedding celebration party) but hopefully I can catch the first half at least.

[Potted Shrimp]

Utterly abysmal stuff. Crap game of football. We have one serious attempt at goal. Individual mistakes all over the pitch.

[Potted Shrimp]

We are very lucky to not be losing this. Quite frankly one of the worst performances I have seen. The individual mistakes have been too frequent.

[Gone_Shrimping]

Well at least we got a point. Plenty of good players on the bench to tweak the team in future games.

A clean sheet and we don't get many of those !

[Bristol Shrimp]

Take the positives. Clean sheet, Rawson looked good and Delaney did well.

[shrimp riddle]

looked decent in patches. Think both central defenders were solid. Coke looked sharp but as usual heavily marked. Clean sheet!±

[glagys]

+ points !

Keeper and back 4 did ok both CH’s had a good game
Love and Melbourne were ok
Gibbo not in midfield need a creative midfield
Arthur back to how he was most of last season in-effective
Hunter & Connolly had good moments
Cole was bullied out of it and given no help from the ref
And the ref !!!! new season but same woeful performance from the officials
Oh well

[P/T Indie]

Don't understand Gibson in midfield and it leaves us with no ball player to run the game was glad when the lad from Port Vale came on.

Seems very defensive with Fane and Gibbo especially at home


Thought the 2 CBs did well and Love seems tidy enough but not sure about the right back he was caught out a few times.

Put Gibbo at LB and put one of the new midfielders on and we would look a lot better.

[Angler1]

I also don't understand playing Gibson in midfield, far too defensive at home and no creativity in midfield. Looked better when Gibson was taken ( I like Gibson as a defender) . It's point but could gave been better with a more attacking midfield.

[Keith]

Pretty much as already said, the positives were a clean sheet and a point.

But, I don't think Shrewsbury are a good side. A decent one would have punished us. If Connolly had finished when one-on-one things may have been different, but then, equally, if they had scored rather than hit the crossbar... Much tougher next Saturday, so the individual errors will be punished.

Actually, a second positive... despite the serving on the pitch, the atmosphere was largely decent at both ends of the pitch! Keep it up folks!!!

[Posh]

Agree with everyone else. Far too defensive for a home fixture against one of the League’s weaker sides.

Gibson should have started at left back. Melbourne’s positional play was poor, gave the ball away a few times, and while got into good positions going forward his two crosses weren’t great. Gibson had plenty of composure in midfield but needed some movement ahead of him it wasn’t happening. Taylor looked excellent when he came on.

Wasn’t convinced by Ripley, Love or Melbourne, and Fane is great at breaking up play but needs to be balanced by creative players ahead of him.

[Phoenix Shrimp 2017]

I personally think Shrewsbury will be competing in the top half of the league this season. Fortunately for us their two main strikers O'Brien and Udoh were unavailable today due to minor knocks, otherwise some of the chances Salop created may have been taken. Overall I thought they were solid and created far more than we did.

Positives for us were few and far between although there was a decent performance from Delaney. However we will need many more of those to convince us he is the answer to our central defensive needs. I thought Taylor looked OK when he came on for a late cameo and played one lovely defence splitting pass which unfortunately came to nothing.

Our management have much to ponder as we move forwards and we do have options from the bench which could help. Hope and pray that whomever is yet to join us on loan can do the business.

One other positive today was a bumper crowd but the part timers in attendance will not be straining at the leash to come back again after a bit of an insipid performance.

Early days and in DA we trust to sort it out!

[P/T Indie]

I just wonder what our tactics will be against the top team, I think Shrews will be mid table at best and it's a game we should have been looking at getting 2 points.

[Redalert1970]

Shrewsbury were miles better than they were 1st game last season

We have lots to work on but hey ho it's only the first game

Thought Rawson and Delaney looked very solid

[CityShrimp]

I too was confused by the starting line up. We seemed to have a team full of defenders and attackers with no ‘true’ midfielders to knit play together. Sure enough, we didn’t seem to pass the ball coherently and I’d like to see Taylor start the next game.

Shrewsbury looked like a lower mid table side and we mostly matched them, but we will need to up our game if we are going to even compete against Peterborough away next Saturday.

Good clean sheet though, and early days but it looks like we are working to get rid of the ‘soft underbelly’ we had last season where we let ourselves get bullied in our own box.

[marky No.1]

Love seems tidy enough but not sure about the right back he was caught out a few times.

Pretty sure Love is our right back and we can only get 1 point or 3, not 2, apart from that fully agree about Gibbo being left back and was surprised the 3 new signings were all on the bench, thought Turner made a difference when he came on and surprised Arthur stayed on for 90 minutes, he was awol 1st half

[SEASIDECLARET]

Markyno1, I think that what’s called leading with your chin! Turner? Don’t think Chesh (Terry Turner) is registered to play, maybe you meant Taylor,although I’m told Chesh was a decent player in his time!!!

[marky No.1]

Haha, yep Taylor, shouldnt post at 1am, lol

[lancaster shrimp]

Defensively I thought we were solid, yes I know they hit the bar, but don't remember Ripley making a save? Don't understand our lack of subs, Swap Gibbo for Taylor, Watts, or Weir next game. Thought Arthur was poor. I know it's only one game and possession isn't everything. But IMO we ain't going to pick up many points in L1 with 30% possession every game

[Redalert1970]

My ratings for yesterday .....

Ripley 6 - Not many saves to make , also bit shaky from set plays

Melborne 5 - Quite poor and gave the ball away quite a few times

Rawson 9 - Won virtually every duel (proper defender / should be given the arm band straightaway)

Delaney 8 - One of his best performances in a Morecambe shirt - like Rawson defended like a defender should

Love 5 - Same as Melborne (no better than what we already have at the club)

Gibson 6 - Worked hard but should not be playing in midfielder - looked lost for big parts of the game

Fane 6 - Not a great performance but kept battling away like he always does

Hunter 6 - Few decent crosses but nothing special - set plays better than Phillips last season is a plus

Connolly 6 - Decent chance 1st half but drifted in and out of the game too much

Stockton 5 - Very average game for Cole but yet again no help from the officials

Gnahoua 5 - 1st half very quiet but 2nd half worked very hard especially tracking back to help defence

Taylor 5 - Didn`t really do much wrong but looked quite bright


Manager 4 - Personally selected wrong team and personally should have changed Stockton for Obika with 20 mins to go just to give Shrewsbury a different problem to think about

Crowd 5 - Decent turnout but apart from first 10 minutes they were very subdued due to the lack of performance and the miserable weather

Overall a point is better than losing - few negatives and a few positives (still need a few more players in the squad especially some with league 1 experience)

[Andy D]

id of took a point before the game.

to many people on social media over reacting, typical Derek Adams set up with 2 stoppers in a 4-2-3-1

id have the same team next week apart from Jake Taylor(more creative) coming into midfield alongside Fane with Gibson replacing Melbourne at L/B

[Freez]

Agree Andy, Gibbo back to left back as we looked exposed down the flanks, and Taylor for more thrust and incisive passing.

[Little Shrimp]

But IMO we ain't going to pick up many points in L1 with 30% possession every game

Good thing we had 42% possession then!

I'd say that was a very ok performance. We'll face better teams this year, but Shrewsbury have recruited some decent players, have continuity under Cotterill and are twice the side that we faced this time last year.

Thought we looked relatively solid, just lacked fluency as many people have already mentioned. Agreed on Gibson - technically he is good enough to play in midfield, but he (understandably) doesn't really have a proper understanding of how to play there positionally etc. I'd be happy seeing him back at left back and Taylor brought into midfield, thought he added that bit of extra spark and fluency into our midfield that we're going to need. Final ball was pretty atrocious from both sides, we looked hesitant and unsure while I've never seen so many shanked crosses as Shrewsbury managed

Overall, I'm pretty happy with things. I was concerned the chaos of last season and DA not having the amount of movement in the squad he wanted might make us a bit weak at the start of this season, but we looked like we had some solid foundations to build upon. That fluency and precision with our attacking play should start to come a bit more as the players get used to each other and start understanding how they all play a bit more.