Morecambe aim to avoid an early FA Cup exit

The Shrimps launch their FA Cup campaign with a trip to National League South club Worthing, looking to take their place in round two of the competition.

While Adams’ players are at the foot of the EFL, Saturday’s hosts are fifth in their division after winning four of the last five league matches.

The only exception was defeat last week at a Torquay United team managed by Paul Wotton, Adams’ former assistant at Plymouth Argyle.

His feedback, along with information gleaned from Worthing’s midweek win at Bath City, has informed Morecambe’s build-up.

“We’re looking forward to it,” Adams said before training on Thursday morning.

“The FA Cup is a great tournament to be involved in and, in the past, we’ve had good runs in it.

“It’s a tie away from home against a team that’s doing well in their league; a very possession-based team who play out from the back and have a number of experienced players in the team, who have played in the Football League before.

“This is the beauty of the FA Cup, it’s an EFL team going to a non-league team and we’ve never come up against each other before.”

Barring any late injuries, Morecambe will take a 21-strong squad containing their three loanees.

Callum Jones (Hull City), Rhys Williams (Liverpool) and Marcus Dackers (Salford City) have all been cleared to play by their respective parent clubs.

George Ray, Lee Angol and Saul Fox-Akande remain absent, with Adams now in the position of having players to pick from rather than looking to make up the numbers.

“Some of those 21 players are just coming back from injury,” he acknowledged.

“Because it’s the FA Cup, we’ve got nine subs to pick on Saturday and a lot of senior players coming back.

“That will help us. We’ve done really well in terms of competing but I don’t think we’ve got what we deserved points-wise.

“We have a reserve team game next week, which Gwion Edwards will play in, but that might be too soon for George Ray; he’ll probably be the next reserve game.

“Fox-Akande has been out since pre-season and Lee Angol will be until the end of the year.”