Morecambe ready to return from their winter break

The Shrimps haven’t played since beating Cheltenham Town on January 7, having endured back-to-back postponements.

Matches against Cambridge United and Port Vale were both called off, meaning Derek Adams’ squad will have had a two-and-a-half-week break between games.

Speaking to Morecambe’s website, the manager admitted there had been some benefits to their recent inactivity.

He said: “Last week against Cambridge, the game was off because of structural damage, this week the game was off due to a frozen pitch.

“We had to train during that couple of weeks, coming off the three wins that we’ve had in recent times, but we’re looking forward to a game on Tuesday night.

“It’s given us an opportunity to train, it’s given the players that have come in during the transfer window an opportunity to get to know the other players, get to know me, get to know the training regime and it’s also got some of the injured players who have been out for a while some extra training.”

The Shrimps head to an Ipswich team sitting third in League One, seven points adrift of the automatic promotion spots.

They suffered only their fourth defeat of the league season last weekend, losing to Oxford United.

Adams added: “We go into a game against Ipswich, who have won one in the last five (league) games. We’ve won three of the last five games.

“We understand they have taken in a number of transfers this summer, which equates to more than the budget we have for the playing budget; their budget in total is five times the budget that we have.

“They are one of the superpowers in this division. They will have 26,000-29,000 at the stadium on Tuesday night but that’s something Morecambe Football Club wanted to do; get out of League Two, get into League One and play against these teams.

“We’ve got great confidence because we’ve won three games on the trot and we’ve scored goals.

“We can open up defences when given that opportunity, we’ve got players to do that.”

Jake Taylor, Max Melbourne and Courtney Duffus remain on the sidelines but, other than that, Adams has a full squad from which to pick.