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.