Morecambe's midweek performance gave manager cause for optimism

The Shrimps head to Boreham Wood on the back of Tuesday’s 3-1 loss to Forest Green Rovers at the Mazuma Mobile Stadium.

That leaves them second-bottom of the early National League table, as they travel to a Boreham Wood team which has picked up 11 points from five matches after losing to Rochdale on day one.

It also sees Morecambe face an early reunion with former fans’ favourite Tom White, one of the summer’s departures amid the club’s lengthy ownership crisis.

Johal said of their midweek performance: “A lot of positives; very disappointed to lose the game because I thought there were moments we controlled.

“If you look at the first 35 minutes, the goal that we scored is the best example of how we want to play where we want to draw the opposition in and, when there’s space, you want to play fast, exploit the space, have runners in behind and play forward.

“That’s the kind of team I want us to be and I think that goal (by Gwion Edwards) was a great example of that.

“The first 35 minutes, I thought we were great, but I was appointed two weeks ago and we’ve had four games in that time.

“In a normal situation, today would be our first game after two weeks of pre-season training – maybe a friendly game where we try things, we have a safe opportunity to try and practice the way we want to play.

“We’ve not been in that situation, it’s been game after game after game.

“Having five training sessions – and only really one where we can work and the rest were all either match prep or recovery sessions – I think the boys have done really well to have a competitive performance. They gave everything.

“There are things we need to improve but the progress that we’ve made in two weeks with a brand new set of players – players that haven’t trained for a number of months in a footballing environment, in a team context – I thought there were a lot of positives.”