National News

As the growing speculation continues to circle around Cristiano Ronaldo's future, other interesting transfer news has been proceeding under the shadow of this nonsense. Personally, i think Ronaldo should just be allowed to leave as Ferguson would make a huge profit from the £12.4million he paid for Ronaldo from Sporting Lisbon. United would then be able to put higher offers on the table for players of such calibre like Dimitar Berbatov , Klass Jan Huntelaar and Rafael Van Der Vaart. United will have lost a player that has more than showed he is capable of fitting in the famous number 7 shirt worn by players like Beckham and Cantona, but if Sir Alex could replace him with quality players like stated, I'm sure they can cope without him. If they wanted to purchase a player who is similar to Ronaldo , i would encourage Fergie to go for David Silva or Joaquin from Valencia who are looking to sell to balance their books.

Onto other news and the team I'm looking forward to seeing in action is Spurs. Their new signings have been very ambitious and will no doubt take the premiership by storm. New goalkeeper, Heurelho Gomes was always consistent and made incredible saves whenever i saw him playing for PSV Eindhoven; Croatian midfielder Luka Modric was wanted by nearly every club in Europe, his performances at Euro 2008 certainly proved this, as he recieved lots of praise by pundits. Giovani Dos Santos was regarded as the "new Ronaldinho" whilst at Barcelona but didn't quite make it, so he should reignite with more first team opportunities at Spurs, latest signing David Bentley is a proven player at Premiership level and with a better team around him (no offence Blackburn), he will be able to create more and get better so he can establish himself in the England side. Add to this very strong list , Russian stars of Euro 2008, Roman Pavlyuchenko and Andrei Arshavin, then i think they should be able to break the top 4.

Other transfers i think that will be a success in the Premier League are:

• Samir Nasri - Has the potential to be as good as Zidane, certainly was impressive for Marseille over the last few seasons and has bags of skill but maybe a bit of a light weight compared to Zidane.
• Johan Elmander - Bolton will rely on him to score the goals and with their style of play, he will receive a lot of deliveries. Proved at Toulouse that he can score in any fashion.
• Jo - Another striker who will score plenty. his partnership with Vagner Love at CSKA Moscow simply destroyed competition in the Russian leagues and with Elano and the return of Valeri Bojinov, he can certainly do it here.
• Jonas Gutierrez - Newcastle fans will love his direct running down the wings mixed in with his flair. He became a fan's favourite with his Spiderman celebration at Mallorca, and with his ability, the Toon Army should be able to see this quite a few times through the season.

Morecambe 1-0 Doncaster Rovers

A positive reply was required after Saturday's defeat against Preston, and it was duly delivered against newly promoted Doncaster. It was a much more confident display by the shrimps which easily kept Rovers at bay and also had the most of the possession through out the match. Morecambe started with started with 6 changes from Saturday as Danny Adams returned at left back , trialist Simon Wiles was given a chance, Blinkhorn, Artell, Parrish and McLachlan also coming into the starting 11. On the other hand, Doncaster started with what could be there started lineup bar James Coppinger and Jame Hayter(who were on the bench). They also included new signing Tomi Ameobi upfront.

Morecambe had control of the middle of the park through out with Michael Carr showing his potential, with some good runs forward to help support Blinkhorn and the impressive O'Carroll. These runs caused trouble for the Donny defence as his passes split them open with O'Carroll blazing over on two occasions. Carr also had chances as their defence backed off but once again he also blazed over. Donny struggled most of the time in the middle of the park as their star player , Richie Wellens was very quiet. They did however, play some decent stuff when they had the ball with lots of short interplay and quick movement but the final ball was always a let down so Morecambe's defence could easily clear the danger. They resorted to long range efforts but none troubled Barry Roache. Simon Wiles impressed on the right wing as his crosses were very dangerous and always picked out a blue shirt, his work rate to help right back Andy Parrish in defending was also impressive, something which wasn't seen consistently last season when Garry Thompson was on the right.

The solitary goal in the game was a lovely one in which showed O'Carroll's class.On 31 minutes, short interplay between Carr and Wiles on the right made an opening for McLachlan to feed O'Carroll on the edge of the box, who smashed the ball home into Donny keeper Ben Smith's bottom left hand corner, leaving him with no chance. O'Carroll defended from the front line well and chased every ball that came towards him for the whole 90 minutes. His workrate and goal show some promising signs for the season. Morecambe's defence was very solid and didn't look like they would concede. Andy Parrish was impressive on his first full game for Morecambe, Danny Adams was his usual consistent self and the partnership of Artell and Bentley looks as though it is getting as good as it was at the start of last season.

The second half saw an improvement in Doncaster's attacking style of play with the introduction of Coppinger, Hayter and Northern Ireland International Stuart Elliot. This improved the pace of the attack and caused more work for Morecambe's defence who were basically cruising before then. However they still didn't look threatening as both goalkeeper's Scott Davies and Barry Roache didn't have much to do. This could be a worry for them as Championship level you need to have the sharpness upfront and creativity. The creativity will be relied on Coppinger and Wellens to set up chances for the likes of Ameobi, Hayter and Paul Heffernan. Morecambe's substitutes however, did look threatening with Wayne Curtis using direct running to scare the full backs. Gary Hunter worked hard when he came on too, chasing everything. Another trialist Jonathan Smith from Aberdeen was also impressive, he looked like his was playing in centre midfield even though he is apparently a striker. he controlled the middle of the park like Carr did in the first half and caused havoc for Donny's defence with his darting runs and innovative passing. All in all, a very comfortable win for the shrimps.

On other news, it looks as though fan's favourites Adam Yates, Michael Twiss and Carl Baker are leaving which is a massive shame as they were my favourites players. Yates was consistent every game he played and on quite a lot of occasions, he played both right back and right wing as Garry Thompson (now at Scunthorpe) was sometimes non-existant. Despite the new signings, his position looked comfortable as McCann was dodgy and Parrish being a decent back up. Twiss on the other hand, hasn't been like he was in the first two seasons when he arrived at Christie Park. He was stuck out on the left wing after that and hasn't been as effective as when he was upfront, therefore resulting in less games being played. It's understandable him leaving because he wants games and with Bury offering this, (and him living two minutes away from Gigg Lane)he would go. I think this will reignite his career if they play him upfront with their star man Andy Bishop and I'm sure he will do well there. Carl Baker wanted to leave as higher league football was there on the table for him. He proved how good he was in the first half of the season and performances against Peterborough and Bradford stand out. But the second half of the season, he sat on the bench most of the time and his form was poor. He'll do well at Stockport as they'll be known as the underdogs and with Peter Thompson upfront, some league 1 teams will underestimate them.

In replacing Baker, Morecambe have signed Rene Howe from Peterborough on loan. I believe he'll be a big success. he has a great goalscoring record at most clubs he's played and he has the pace which they need. He can play as a target man so Blinkhorn or O'Carroll can feed off him or he can play on the wing which will give us another option there. He will continue his excellent goalscoring record here and will become a fans' favourite.

Morecambe 0-3 Preston North End

I was rather optimistic for the first friendly down at Christie park, with 8 new signings ready to make debuts and being highly rated ones to that. However, at full time, it was rather the opposite as Preston ran the game from start to finish without even being in their top gear, while Morecambe kept on making the basic school boy errors. Preston started out with their strongest squad while Morecambe started with 6 Christie Park debutants, which was easily spotted as the lack of creativity and the reading of each other's games was none existant.

The Shrimps' started out with a 4-4-2 formation but started with 3 centre midfielders, meaning Craig Stanley, who we mainly rely on to create things from the middle, pushed more to the right. The problem was that he kept on coming inside meaning the right flank had to be looked after by Ryan McCann who had to mark two so was always out of position. Preston took full advantage as in the space of 7 minutes, they were two-nil up from attacks down Morecambe's right. Preston's first goal came from a cross by Chris Sedgewick which missed everyone and let Sean St Ledger slot home. Frequent runs from Mellor, Sedgewick and Hill down their left hand side was the main theme of the afternoon as they took full advantage of McCann. Even if there was a right winger for Morecambe, e.g. Baker , McCann still doesn't look good enough to dislodge Adam Yates, our best right back. Basic school boys errors could easily be seen as the passing was not there in the first half and a lot of the time there was overcrowding as everyone moved towards the ball instead of trying to make space. This mainly happening at throw ins.

Preston's second came from a corner on the right by Sedgewick and the smallest player on the pitch at the time, Karl Hawley, managed to beat everyone at the front post to head over Shrimp's goalkeeper, Barry Roache who i feel should have done better. North End's swift passing continued to easily open up Morecambe's defence and only a fine save by Roache stopped Neil Mellor making it three. The passing and the pace of Preston's attacking play did make it three on 23 minutes as Mellor dispatched from 8 yards out after a brilliant cross by the very impressive Joe Anyinsah. He was the denied by the crossbar as Preston's passing sliced Morecambe open once again in another fine move. I was very impressed with their performance overall and i was already clapping as it seemed destined for the top corner.

Morecambe's only chances in the first half were a Henry McStay header which was tipped wide by North End's keeper, Andy Lonergan, and a shot by trialist Chris Turner, who i was impressed with, flashed wide.

Despite all the negatives of the first half, Morecambe improved massively in the second half as the introduction of Matty Blinkhorn made the attacking line more threatening. You could see straight away there is some potential for a decent partnership upfront with Blinkhorn and O'Carroll as the latter came more alive with somebody now there to feed off his hold up play. Neil Wainwright was also now able to put more crosses into the box as he had more time to run at the fullbacks, he swapped wings frequently to gain an advantage but seemed more threatening running at Preston's left back, Jones who struggled to cope. Wayne Curtis worked hard through out as the opponents didn't like his physical style of play, he closed down all the time and put in some hard tackles to make his presence felt. Barry Roache made a brilliant double save to deny substitutes Chris Brown and Paul McKenna and also looked solid claiming crosses, however he did have a couple of dodgy moments.

The second half was a lot more encouraging for the fans as there was now more bite in the tackles and more chances being created. It is still very early to say how Morecambe will do through out the season and I'm sure they will do fine as soon as the signings settle in, but i just feel it was the wrong way to play these new recruits so early on. They need to get used to things such as how we play and putting them all in at the deep-end won't make them click straight away. However I do think there is some potential in the ranks and once the season starts I'm sure we will do very well and hopefully the big name signings such as O'Carroll, Roache and Michael Carr will be at their best.

Hello

I will be writing this throughout the next football season to express my opinions on the latest football news nationally and internationally, Whether this being about the transfers or how the players behave etc, I believe that I will try to make opinions clear and I hope that this will be an enjoyable read for you the readers.

I will also be writing on information on how my own football season will go on. For this season I will be playing for Morecambe Under 18’s in the Lancashire Evening Post Sunday League Division 2 North and for Torrisholme F.C. in the North Lancashire First Division. I will try to write information on how we perform such as match reports and personal analysis on how I believe we fared through the campaign.

Feel free to leave comments and questions after each post and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible.

Thanks