IT looks likely that Morecambe will be without striker Neil Morton for Saturday's home match against third placed Rushden and Diamonds.

There's still a chance for the injured player, but the news is a blow for the Shrimps who just have not been able to score in recent games. It is now 475 minutes of league football since they last put the ball in the back of the net.

As manager Jim Harvey said: "We desperately need something, anything at all to go right in front of goal. On Saturday we had five or six good half chances - they had one and won the match. It's just so frustrating. We're restricting sides to very few chances but we just can't score ourselves."

Meanwhile Harvey was still optimistic ahead of Saturday's game: "We expect Rushden to be a hard game but we still feel we can win it. Confidence is still holding up."

What made Saturday's game even more frustrating was the fact that this was a poor Woking performance. You had to keep checking the score after Stuart Girdler's 26th minute goal, a good half volley from the edge of the penalty area, to be remind yourself that Morecambe were actually contriving to lose this game.

New full backs Andy Fensome and Greg Brown were solid in defence to restrict the visitors to just one chance while Kenny Mayers slotted in well at the centre of defence.

The team pressed well as they headed up front. Some of Shrimps best chances included three good efforts from Neil Morton. But their best effort of all came on 58 minutes when Mayers took the ball all the way to the Woking penalty area in a forceful run. He delivered the ball to Morton on the right who knocked the ball in for joint top Conference scorer John Norman. But he was denied twice as two Woking defenders blocked both his efforts when he seemed sure to score.

The incident was typical of a frustrating day for Morecambe. Morecambe 0 Woking 1

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