[NoSkillz]

July 2020- Transfer Window



Retirements

GK - Barry Roche
AMR - Garry Thompson

Barry Roche retires from Morecambe as a team legend after spending 12 years wearing the #1 jersey. Roche, who spent his formative years at Nottingham Forest, played in 485 games overall for Morecambe and will be very difficult to replace. Roche is attempting to become a goaltender coach in his retirement.

Garry Thompson retires as a team icon himself and was a product of the Morecambe youth setup, starring for many years on the wing. Thompson scored in one of the most important games in team history, scoring the first goal in Morecambe's 2-1 playoff final win over Exeter City back in May 2007 that earned the team their promotion to League Two. Thompson retires after 770 games in his 23 year career, 402 of which were played for Morecambe over two spells. He scored an impressive 123 total goals in his fine career. Thompson will move into coaching and is looking for a job in youth development.



Transfers OUT

MC - Aaron Wildig - Billericay - £56,000
GK - Mark Halstead - Darlington - £0

The big move is getting a decent transfer fee for Aaron Wildig, a versatile midfielder who was simply making too much money to play a depth role on this team. Wildig joined Morecambe originally in March 2015 on loan from Shrewsbury and eventually was signed on a free when the transfer window opened that summer. He played in 189 games for Morecambe over a five and a half year period, scoring 10 goals and adding 6 assists.

Mark Halstead was originally part of the youth setup at Blackpool and bounced around on various loan assignments for years until moving to Shrewsbury in 2014. He'd spend three years there, moved to Southport for a season then joined Morecambe in the summer of 2018 on a free. In his two years here, he started only 15 games, providing the legendary Barry Roche with the occasional breather and played solidly but while his wage wasn't too onerous, I felt I could do better on the transfer and loan market to replace him.



RELEASED PLAYERS

ST - Kyle Hawley

Hawley essentially was the only player on the team who had an expiring contract so I was able to let him go to free up a bit of wage budget. The 20 year old was a part of our youth setup and spent four years with the club, making only 9 appearances with the senior team in that time, with no goals or assits on his record. He won't be missed.



Transfers IN

GK - Louie Moulden - £0 (Free) - 18 years old, England
GK - Lewis Thomas - £0 (Free) - 18 years old, England
DL - Tristan Cover - £0 (Free) - 18 years old, England
DL - James Morris - £0 (Free) - 18 years old, England
DC - Samuel Nsumbu - £0 (Free) - 18 years old, England
DC - Morgan Feeney - £0 (Free) - 21 years old, England
MC - Owen Beck - £0 (From Liverpool) - 17 years old, Wales
MC - Rafferty Pedder - £0 (Free) - 18 years old, England
AMC - Thierno Ballo - £0 (Free) - 18 years old, Austria
AMR - Harvey Neville - £0 (Free) - 18 years old, England
ST - Harvey Knibbs - £0 (From Aston Villa) - 21 years old, Jamaica

Lots of depth and some decent quality here. Owen Beck comes over from Liverpool in a pre-arranged transfer organized by my predecessor. He's part of the U18 setup for Wales and has potential but is very raw.

My first official signing was right winger Harvey Neville, who was part of youth setups at both Valencia and Manchester United and is the son of famed United star Phil Neville. I'm pretty excited about bringing him in, as he looks to be good enough to start with us right away. Perhaps the most exciting prospect here is Thierno Ballo, a dynamic attacking central mid who played youth football with Leverkusen and Viktoria Koln in Germany before being scooped up by Chelsea on a £180,000 transfer back in 2017. He'd spend three years in the youth setup there before getting released on a free this June. He looks to be a sensational signing and will offer capable support to incumbent AMC A-Jay Leitch-Smith. Louie Moulden and Lewis Thomas both come from the Manchester City youth setup and both were released on frees by the Citizens. Both have plenty of potential and could play for us this year if needed.

Other interesting players who could make impacts this year include Samuel Nsumbu (former West Ham U18), James Morris (Southampton U18), Raferty Pedder (Tottenham U18), Morgan Feeney (Everton U18) and Harvey Knibbs, who I was able to arrange a free transfer from Aston Villa, as he was transfer listed by request.



Loans OUT

GK - Louie Moulden - Wrexham - Free
DC - Tyler Brownsword - Ebbsfleet - Free
DC _ Di'Shon Bernard - Chorley - Free
DC - Morgan Feeney - Southport - Free
DR - Liam Hegarty - Dag & Red - Free
MC - Ben Hedley - Dover - Free
MC - Rafferty Pedder - Southport - Free
AMR - Stanley Asomugha - Harrogate - Free
AMR - Rhys Oates - Wrexham - Free
AMR - Reece Mitchell - Dover - Free
ST - Jason Oswell - Salford - Free
ST - Bradley Clayton - Scarborough - Free

We needed to move wages out by any means in order to free up money to spend on players who could contribute this year. So that means we move 12 players out on season-long loans, with each of the respective clubs thankfully picking up the full wage bill in the process.



Loans IN

GK - Jonathan De Bie - £0 (From Aston Villa) - 20 years old, Belgium
DC - Luke Woolfenden - £0 (From Ipswich) - 21 years old, England
DR - Corey Whelan - £0 (From Liverpool) - 22 years old, Ireland
MC - Lewis O'Brien - £0 (From Huddersfield) - 21 years old, England
MC - DJ Buffonge - £0 (From Manchester United) - 21 years old, Antigua & Barbuda
AMC - Matheus Santana - £0 (From Watford) - 22 years old, Brazil
AMR - Kyle McAllister - £0 (From Derby) - 21 years old, Scotland
AMR - Jordan Cox - £0 (From Liverpool) - 21 years old, England
ST - Jahmal Hector-Ingram - £0 (From West Ham) - 21 years old, England
ST - Oladapo Afolayan - £0 (From West Ham) - 22 years old, Nigeria

So yeah, this is very unorthodox but with essentially no money to spend and a small squad, I figured the only way I could get quality players was to hit the loan market hard. And that's what we did.

There is no limit to how many loan players I can bring in for League One football. However, I can only have a maximum of five loan players in the match squad for any league games so I'm limited from that respect.

Pretty much every player here is a starting calibre player. Jonathan De Bie looks like an exceptional prospect (3.5/4.5), as do DJ Buffonge, Jordan Cox and Jahmal Hector-Ingram. Corey Whelan is very versatile and can play DC or DR at a high level while Kyle McAllister and Cox can play both sides of midfield.

I'm really delighted with what we were able to accomplish here and in all of these cases, the parent club was okay footing the wage bill in hopes that they'd all see plenty of first-team action.



Final Thoughts Before the Season Begins

Lets just say that things got off to a very rocky start for me as manager of Morecambe. And that's before we even stepped on the pitch for a game that actually counted.

Needing to purge salaries and get some money off the books, hard choices would need to be made and my first thought was to sell popular fullback Zak Mills, as he was valued at well over £100,000 and teams seemingly were interested in obtaining him.

It pretty much blew up in my face.

While there was definite interest in Mills' services, the player himself had absolutely no interest in leaving the club and was quite clear about telling me so, while also letting his teammates know what had transpired.

Within a week I was perhaps the most hated man in town.

I ended up taking Mills off the market and while I promised him that I wouldn't sell him for the balance of the year, hard feelings remained for him and his fellow teammates. Support from my players was practically non-existent as we went through our pre-season schedule and I spent more time on man management off the pitch (ie: kissing player's asses) then I can ever remember.

I set up a pretty gruelling set of friendlies, eight in total, as we had many new players being introduced to the squad and also had a number of players in on trial during the month of July. I also strived to bring in some big clubs for the friendlies to help bring in some much needed money into the team. We hosted games against Celtic, Tottenham and Manchester United, losing 2-0, 4-1 and 4-0 respectively in those contests. Thankfully, we'd win matches against Kendal, Drogheda United, Hartlepool and Preston North End and draw against Fleetwood to give our team a slight bit of confidence prior to the start of the regular season.

The plan was to retain and utilize the 4-2-3-1 Gegenpress system that I introduced at Queen's Park a couple years ago in order to present some attractive football to the Morecambe supporters. We'll try to maintain a positive approach on the pitch but we may have to move to a more balanced or cautious approach if things start getting away from us early.

We decided to keep Alex Kenyon as captain and named fellow veteran midfielder Andrew Tutte as our vice captain, two choices that were popular among their teammates.

Some important players battled injuries in the preseason and fitness proved to be a major issue with our players due to some lackluster coaching and some undisciplined plays in practice. Key AMC A-Jay Leitch-Smith wasn't ready for the start of the season while a few others also dealt with some knocks in the early goings.

Here is the starting lineup for Morecambe's first ever official match in Sky Bet League One, an away tie against Rotherham:

GK - Jonathan De Bie
D - Bailey Owen - Stefan O'Connor - Sam Lavelle - Zak Mills
M - Alex Kenyon - Andrew Tutte
AM -Carlos Mendes Gomes - Matheus Santana - Kyle McAllister
ST - Jahmal Hector-Ingram