Most liked posts in thread: Fiacre Kelleher Signs

Think this sort of player was exactly what we needed. Whilst I would like us to bring on Foulds, Staunton and Sikora, if we have injuries to both Paudie and Canavan we would suddenly have two short, inexperienced players at centre back - whatever their quality as footballers they'd get mullered at this level without a big bugger of a centre back alongside them to win the aerial stuff

 

Best name yet.

 

Welcome to the lad.

Hope he works hard and shows his potential.

 

Oh absolutely. We've probably got a squad of around 36 with all the players that have definitely signed and are just waiting to be announced.

 

Owned by Hollywood star, has money behind them. Building a new Kop. Ex CEO of Liverpool guiding the club. Joint second favs to go up.

They'll over take Bradford City in 2 seasons if we don't go up next season.

 

And 42 appearances for Wrexham last season, scored against us for Macclesfield. Looks like Adams is signing players to do a job and with that get us promoted.

 

Morecambe were lucky. Covid times. No fans. I don't look at Morecambe and think WOW. I think credit to them but lucky.

Bradford City are not Morecambe and the squad put together on a shoe string isn't good enough.

Sparks said we were ready for the summer transfer market. Not for me. Made about 1 decent signing so far.

 

This whole recruitment looks cheap, amazing what a 33% rise in season tickets get you.

 

Okay, so I'm going to challenge the idea that questioning signings EVEN THOSE OF ADAMS is overly 'negative' - which kind of implies that he generally gets his signings spot on, hence his success at Morecambe.

So Derek Adams joined Morecambe in November 2019 in a season where Morecambe struggled badly, no real fault of Adams, they were already performing dismally by the time he joined. So, let's see how he performed in the transfer market, shall we?

His players are all judged on whether they were released or retained, wanted or unwanted, and how many games they played.

January 2020:

Toumani Diagouraga - Toumani looks to have been an important player for Morecambe last season. He played 36 times, and scored 3 goals. They've also re-signed him ahead of their League One debut. Looks a good bit of business!
Jordan Slew - Striker Slew has scored 1 goal in 28 appearances, making 17 last season. That's dismal, and the 6'3 striker bears a fair amount of resemblance to Lee Angol. It will be no surprise if Angol performs just as badly as Slew. Poor signing.
Christian Mbulu - Hasn't featured for Morecambe, a nothing signing.

Success in this window? Very limited, one good signing, two unsuccessful signings, but it's January, so I'm letting him off.

Summer 2020:

Stephen Hendrie - Hendrie made 22 starts for Morecambe, and 14 substitute appearances. A left back/centre back, Hendrie was released at the end of the season, implying he was an average player in a successful side. Mediocre signing.
Harry Davis - A mediocre-looking signing on paper, the ex-Grimsby man made 22 starts and 5 substitute appearances, before being released at the end of the season. See above, mediocre.
NKP - NKP made 29 starts and 2 substitute appearances, denoting an important player in their promotion season. He has since moved on to Tranmere, but still looks like a good signing.
Liam McAlinden - Journeyman forward McAlinden started 4 games, making 24 sub appearances and scoring 2 goals. He was released after what is described as a disappointing stint at the club. Poor signing.
Ben Pringle - For whatever reason, Pringle has hardly played for Morecambe (4 starts, 7 sub appearances), and I'm not even sure he made it to the end of the season. A poor signing.
Kelvin Mellor - Mellor made 29 starts and 3 sub appearances in a stint that has been notably similar to NKP's. Once again, I'll have to rate Mellor as a good signing, particularly as they've tried to keep him on.
Liam Gibson - a left back who made 22 starts, I've no idea who he is, but they've offered him a new deal, so I'm going to rate him as a good signing as opposed to Hendrie and Davis. 22 starts isn't mega, though, so he could easily be rated as an average signing based on stats alone.
Yann Songo'o - not much arguing that Songo'o was one of Morecambe's best players, he played 34 times from the start plus 4 more as a sub, scoring 6 goals. A very good signing.

January 2021:

Kyle Letheren - Kyle signed for Morecambe until the end of the season, and was offered a new deal after making 21 starts. Since he took over, I'm rating him a good signing.

Overview:
Strikers - dreadful. Even so, Morecambe were the 4th highest scorers in the division.
Midfielders - Toumani and Songo'o have helped them to promotion, which is excellent, while Pringle was a nothing signing. Adam Phillips, loan signing from Burnley, was also excellent.
Defenders - Adams has packed in a load of defenders. NKP, Mellor, Gibson, Hendrie, Davis and the late Christian Mbulu. A real mixed bag, but overall some good success. Morecambe had the worst defensive record in the top 11, and the joint 8th worst defence overall.

Star players for 2020/21 (30+ starts and/or goalscoring achievement):

Carlos Mendes Gomes - 15 league goals saw Mendes Gomes top scorer with a slew (geddit?) of admirers. Quality player, flourished under Adams - but wasn't an Adams signing.
Cole Stockton - 13 league goals saw Stockton produce the best season of his career by a mile - but again, not an Adams signing.
Aaron Wildig - 8 goals from midfield is Wildig's best ever performance, but not an Adams signing.
Sam Lavelle - massive defender and captain, Lavelle really flourished under Adams, but he is not an Adams signing.
Adam Philips - 8 goals from midfield, Adam Phillips was an excellent loan signing from Adams, whom he brought in twice.
Yann Songo'o - 6 goals from midfield from the enforcer, an Adams signing.
John O'Sullivan - the only other player to make more than 30 starts, midfielder O'Sullivan scored 4 goals. Not an Adams signing.

So two of the seven 'star players' based on the statistics were Adams signings; the rest were already in place.

I think given that Adams signed 9 players for Morecambe last season, and realistically half were good, half were mediocre or poor, we're going to be looking at a similar ratio this season.

I'm not expecting much from Angol and Kelleher, Ridehalgh and Threlkeld are probably average, Eisa and Gilliead look decent (potentially), and Cook is a good player. But if Adams' success at Morecambe tells us anything, he's more likely to get results from the CURRENT players than the new ones - so yes, my conclusion is we definitely SHOULD be looking at his signings with a good degree of scepticism.

 

Are you seriously suggesting Adams doesnt know the expectations of our fans? You are so naive.

 

Sometimes you can read too much into stuff but the article in the T&A introducing him said he was competition for Paudie, Canavan and Sikora. The others you have named (and I also thought about) were missing. That may mean they just weren't added in the article because it wasn't a quote or Adams seems them as left/right backs.

 

If songo comes in as expected then for me we are still 2 forwards short. The rest of the squad would have enough to cover. I do expect however 1 maybe 2 to leave.

 

Lets wait and see how they all gel. Sum of the parts and all that. No point getting in 11 Bell tent signings who can't work together. Remember no one had heard of John Hendrie and Greg Abbott (or Martin Singleton) when we picked them up from Coventry reserves

 

He's just a new Luke Oliver. When things goes t!ts he'll be clambering off the bench and being stuck up front

 

Pretty straight forward stuff and all sounds plausible. Just one point, when you say “well documented”, you don’t mean on this forum do you?

I believe the issue was the comparison between Stuart and Adams. Can’t see that being made. Finally it’s clear Stuart wanted to be “one of the lads”, that was made clear in his waffling interviews from memory. I don’t see Adams being like that, which I don’t think anyone can deny?

 

Which Adams is fully aware of!

I will say it again....you are judging our squad on paper and writing it off before a ball is kicked. Morecambes squad on paper didnt look good enough for promotion.

Interested to know whose transfer activity has impressed you the most? Who is setting the benchmark?

Bowyer has signed two players for Salford. Youd be having kittens if we had only signed two by June 30th.

Orient and Mansfield hardly pulling up trees yet you have waxed lyrical about them previously.

 

Sot on, I always thought Stuart's stunt on the pre-season tour of Germany was rank unprofessionalism. I love Stuart to bits, but as a "professional" football manager he doesn't hold a candle to Parky who was a "proper" football manager.

 

I reckon he should be called Fecker, as he's a right big fecker

 

Can't agree with that, I'm afraid. He had a few good players, but the squad was really weak.

We were relying on Wood (having an off-season), Evans (past his best), Clarke (past his best), Donaldson (WAY past his best and useless up front), Zeli (useless full stop), Samuels (he played 12 times), DMH (he played 11 times), BRE (he played 10 times) and Kurtis Guthrie (he played 8 times).

Wood aside, tell me that isn't a list of very poor L2 players.

Then factor in the number of 18 year olds who weren't ready and were getting rushed into the team (even if it meant long term injury in the case of Staunton), and I'm afraid I'm not having it.

That was a piss poor squad worthy of relegation trouble.

 

Never heard of him but his name is going to give our fans plenty of fun on the radio phone ins. Some couldn’t even get Hopkin right! Let’s hope he’s a big, solid unit, anyway.