Morecambe boss looking to add to squad ahead of season opener

The Morecambe manager says he’s keen to add to his squad, with just over a week to go before his side’s first game of the National League North season.

The Shrimps played out a 1-1 draw in an entertaining friendly with AFC Fylde on Tuesday night at the Halo Aerospace Stadium, in the club’s toughest pre-season test so far against their National League opponents.

25 players have left the club over the summer, while Adam Lakeland has made eleven new signings to date since taking the reins in May, with three more players from last season’s squad – Paul Lewis, Ben Williams and Myles Boney - also signing new deals, while two more players – Liam Hogan and Lennon Dobson  – remained in contract, and extensions were triggered on Adam Fairclough and Alfie Scales.

When asked on future forays into the transfer market, Lakeland told Beyond Radio: ‘’We're always looking. We need to add. We know we need to add, but we're not just going to bring players in just because we need one or two bodies.

‘’I think I've stipulated that from day one. I don't like rushing in my recruitment. If I'm certain on something, then I'll try and make it happen.

‘’I've got the support from the club for us to do that.

‘’I'm quite pleased with what we've got at the moment. I think it was important when we came in that we were quite aggressive with our recruitment and we got the bulk of it done before we came back into pre-season because we've so much change.

‘’We wanted to have that time with the players, to work with them on the training ground, to let them build their relationships and establish that kind of understanding of one another's game.

‘’I feel like we are developing that week by week. But if we can add, we absolutely will be.’’

The Morecambe manager also revealed they’d missed out on one target, who was close to joining the club before instead securing a move elsewhere.

‘’There was one who we felt and we hoped that we'd had him in the pipeline for a number of weeks, to be honest,’’ he said.

‘’We were patient because we felt it would be a couple of weeks into pre-season when we actually managed to get it done.

‘’Then, just out of nowhere, a club from the Championships just came and took him away from us. That was a bit of a blow, if I'm being honest, but that's football.’’

The Shrimps host Barrow on Saturday (August 1) in their final pre-season encounter of the summer.

The Bluebirds were relegated from League Two last season and Lakeland said it would be another good test for his squad.

Lakeland added: ‘’They’re another good team with a good manager. Obviously, another team that have come down from the league.

‘’I'm guessing that they'll be wanting to return immediately back to the EFL. So, it's going to be another really good test and challenge for us. Probably a slightly different style to the one that we faced [against AFC Fylde], which again is another good test for the players.

‘’You want to play hard games, as many hard games in pre-season as you can. I think, obviously, with us coming in at the stage that we did, a lot of the pre-season schedule was already sorted.

‘’But, obviously, with us being able to get this game, it just means that we can finish our pre-season off with two really solid tests against higher league opposition.

‘’I feel in the main, we fared quite well [on Tuesday]. Hopefully, we'll do the same on Saturday. Then, the bulk of the pre-season work is over and we all turn our attentions to that first game of the season.’’