Bury 3 v 2 Morecambe
Gigg Lane, League 2, Saturday 1 September 2018, 3pm.
Attendance 3242 with 298 Shrimps fans.

Shrimps – Roche Mills Conlan Old Yarney Fleming Wildig Mandeville Oates Oswell Mendes-Gomez, subs used Ellison for Mendes-Gomes 62 Oliver for Oates 69, Piggott for Oswell 69.

Shakers- Murphy Stokes Aimson Thompson Dawson Mayor Adams Telford Dagnall Danns c McFadzean subs used Styles for Dawson 43, Lavery for Dagnall 62, Miller for Mayor 72.

Ref- Ben Toner – Was taken in by Bury’s falling over tactics, yet Mandeville was throttled from behind in the first half with not even a free kick given. The Shakers timewasting and persistent throwing the ball away at every stoppage became a joke which he never controlled, first real poor performance from an official this term. But not his fault we lost btw.

Weather – warm and sunny again, pitch was superb, though they did heavily water the section that Bury were attacking both halves.

Armed with positivity after two home performances which promised much both with the style of football and the formation, 300 travelling Shrimps assembled at Gigg Lane with high hopes.
Mendes-Gomes replaced the injured AJay Leitch-Smith, so one hyphenated name for another, and Baz returned between the sticks, otherwise it was a similar line up to the Oldham game.
The opening exchanges were a little scrappy but pretty soon the width created by Mayor on the left and Adams on the right began to cause us problems. Adams skipped past Conlan at will, a succession of low crosses being shepherded away for corners or hastily put into the stands with Baz on alert from two efforts from inside the box. Their five in midfield were dominating as we found it difficult to keep the ball, with Carlos looking very much the frightened rabbit on his debut.
From a corner from the left, a looping header made Baz backpedal and tip the effort onto the bar, however time stood still as the ball fell to the floor and Thompson reacted quickest to sidefoot into the empty net to give the home side a  deserved lead, 1-0 in the 29th minute, and it was coming.
We reacted well, Oswell being hauled to the ground after trapping with his chest, play on given, then a cross was not cleared and a clever sideways header from Yarney set up Flemo, whose half volley was saved low to his left by Murphy, with Rhys Oates pouncing to tap in for 1-1 just nine minutes later. We had one shot on target resulting in a goal we hardly deserved but hey we need a bit of luck.
This setback spurred Bury back onto the offensive and some neat interplay down the left between McFadzean and Mayor lead to a simple chance 10 yards out for Telford to regain the lead for the homeside on the stroke of half time.
No one could say that the Shakers didn’t deserve it.

Oates had a chance early in the second period as the Shrimps looked more purposeful, however his cross shot fizzed well wide. Ellison replaced the ineffective Carlos, he needs time and an arm around him at the moment but will hopefully come again, and immediately we looked more balanced. An offside flag denied Kev (correctly) and Steve Old sidefooted wide from our only corner, as we pressed but too often the final pass let us down. Mills ran in behind and crossed for Oates to try and trap it forcing Murphy to save in what was our only effort on target up to that point in the second period.
As Bury made changes to defend their lead and began to time waste, they dropped deeper and we pushed the full backs higher up. Danns made a break and Miller found him, he reached the byline and crossed for Telford to tap in for his second with three minutes left to settle the game. Caught on the break, it was the first real Bury threat of the second half.
Liam Mandeville made it more interesting as he curled a brilliant effort into the top corner from outside the box to reduce the arrears, but in fairness on the day the scoreline flatters us more than Bury.
It’s concerning that despite our decent home performances we have been away from home on three occasions in the league and not yet really turned up.
Lots of fans were hoping Carlos would get his chance, and it became clear very quickly that he is still a work in progress, so Jim is damned if he picks him and damned if he doesn’t. What was obvious was the effect that Leitch-Smith has with his energy and movement, which on the day we sorely missed.

Freez