Morecambe manager seeks the answer to one particular question

Morecambe boss Derek Adams admits their opening league games have left him with a puzzle to solve.
Morecambe have rotated their squad in the early part of the seasonMorecambe have rotated their squad in the early part of the season
Morecambe have rotated their squad in the early part of the season

The Shrimps have won two of their first three League Two matches to leave them fifth in the table ahead of Port Vale’s visit on Saturday.

However, Adams’ players have fallen behind in all three of those games to continue a trend from last season.

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Including the curtailed 2019/20 programme, it means the Shrimps have conceded the first goal in 29 of their last 40 league matches.

While the players’ ability to overturn deficits pleases Adams, he’d prefer it if they didn’t have to play catch-up quite so often.

“We’ve shown at Cheltenham and Southend that we have the team to come back and win games from being a goal down,” he said.

“We’re sitting down and looking at it but there can be a whole host of things behind it.

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“Do we come in too early from the warm-up? Do we stay in too late between the warm-up and going back out again?

“Is it how we start the game? These are all things that we’re looking at.”

Saturday’s game will be the ninth of a compressed season given the later than normal start to proceedings.

League and cup ties have been alternated in the opening month with changes aplenty from match to match.

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Chopping and changing can do little to build continuity, especially given the need for Morecambe to integrate 11 new signings.

However, as Adams said, it’s an occupational hazard given the situation in which clubs find themselves.

“The difficulty for us, and all clubs, is the cup games that have come between the league games,” he outlined.

“We’ve played five cup ties from eight matches so far, which is a lot to start the season.

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“I’ve moved the squad about a good bit and got some good game time into all the players.

“We had Yann Songo’o and A-Jay (Leitch-Smith) playing the other night (at Salford City); A-Jay has been out for eight months so it allowed him to get some time in.

“That was the thinking behind making the 10 changes that we did.”