Morecambe boss wants some off-field support

It’s now a month since Brannan was named Derek Adams’ successor as manager, having joined the Shrimps as first-team and senior professional development coach in September.

In that month, Brannan has seen assistant boss John McMahon on leave after surgery and been unable to fill his former role – and now faces the impending exit of Greg Strong, the club’s head of recruitment.

All that is against the continuing backdrop of the club’s ownership position with the board of directors at odds with the owner.

Brannan said: “It’s really tough at the minute. I’ve been coaching, doing the meetings, doing the interviews, doing warm-ups on the pitch, as well as trying to be the manager – and just to be the manager’s hard enough.

“To be fair to the board, they’re trying their best to get things sorted out and hopefully we’ll have someone in soon to help me.”

Asked if the job was harder than he’d thought, Brannan continued: “It’s a hard question. It’s harder than I thought because I’ve got no-one with me but, if I had someone with me, I don’t think it would be.

“I could bounce off them, I could get ideas off them, you could make decisions together.

“I’m doing three jobs in one. I’m not complaining but I do need someone in to help me and hopefully the board will do their best to do it.”

Morecambe host Harrogate Town at the Mazuma Mobile Stadium on New Year’s Day after 2023 ended with Friday’s 5-0 loss at Notts County.

A heavy away defeat is nothing new for the Shrimps this season, having gone down 6-0 at Wrexham when Brannan and McMahon were in caretaker charge.

Speaking after Friday’s game, Brannan said: “I said we learned from the Wrexham game, we’ve got to learn from tonight’s game.

“We’ve got to get back to the way we were first half against Bradford, the way we were against Doncaster.

“Harrogate on Monday, we’ve got to go straight into them and play the way we normally play; with the pace and quality on the ball and look like we’re full of legs.”