I’ll admit that I was impressed with Morecambe in the Playoff Final and that I was initially going to predict them for a Top 10 finish, but then they sold impressive Danny Carlton to Carlisle United. He scored a stunning goal in the Conference Playoff Final against Exeter after the Grecians had taken an early lead. Not only have they sold Carlton, but they’ve sold one of the fewer people around that’s hairier than myself, Chris Blackburn.

Replacing those players hasn’t been easy as they’ve brought in regular relegation fighter, David Artell from Chester City, as well as Southport’s Carl Baker and Preston North End’s Chris Neal. Whether these players can replace the departed duo remains to be seen. Their squad does have one or two familiar sounding players, including former City target Danny Adams. Sticker Michael Twiss also came through the Manchester United youth team. Other than that there arent many players that Imps fans would have heard off.

Morecambe’s pre-season saw an impressive victory over Greenock Morton, the winners of the Scottish 2^nd Division. I say impressive, what I meant was they beat the Champions of a division with the same quality as Lincoln United’s division, but beating the Champions of any division is still a decent achievement.

Morecambe have a highly experienced manager in Sammy McIlroy. 10 years ago he shocked everyone in the 4^th tier as he guided Macclesfield Town to automatic promotion in their first season in the Football League. They were undefeated at home in that season but he couldn’t halt their relegation straight back to Division 3. He has also managed Northern Ireland and Stockport in his career. His record has seen him lose nearly 100 of his 221 games in management compared to just 66 wins.

From what I can tell about Morecambe from watching them on TV, they appear to be willing to play football in the right way but they do that without a vocal support. Their ground also appears to be quite unwelcoming to the away sie and that could work in their advantage in their first ever season in the Football League. That’s where I feel that they will do quite well, gaining the majority of their points to compensate for a poor away record.

Morecambe have faced several League sides in Cup competitions this century and have come out of near enough all of them with praise from the League side. In the 2000/1 season Morecambe visited the Imps in the LDV Vans an they were one of the best sides we’ve faced this century, only a Lee Thorpe hat-trick seeing the Imps though to the next round.

Overall I think Morecambe could surprise a lot of sides this season and finish in 16^th place. Do you agree with this or do you think they are going to finish far away from where I've predicted? Either way post below.

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