Morecambe CEO quizzed on the club, its future, and under-fire manager Ashvir Singh Johal

Morecambe CEO Ropinder Singh was this week quizzed on the club, its future, and under-fire manager Ashvir Singh Johal.

Fans had the chance to address their concerns at a fans forum, with the Shrimps sitting third-bottom in the National League (with only 5 wins from 25 games, and a low point in their recent game, being knocked out of the FA Trophy losing 6-2 to league below Kidderminster.

There are widespread calls to sack Ashvir Singh Johal, who controversially replaced Derek Adams back in August by new owners Panjab Warriors.

Singh also touched on other topics including the pies, improvements at the ground, the lack of communication, club finances, player recruitment, off-field income, management roles, Emerson Sutton, and whether Panjab Warriors are the right people to run the club.

The club are said to be continuously reviewing the manager, staff, players, and much more on a daily basis in the hope of turning results around.

He strongly denied claims of there being any family or financial links between Johal and the owners/takeover, saying the appointment was made purely on merit / CV after interviews with several candidates.

Ropinder Singh said, per beyond.radio: “Everything is being looked at continuously.

“People are being picked because we think they’re the right people for the job.

“When things don’t happen the way we want them to happen on the football pitch, obviously we have to look at the person and say, is he capable? Are the staff around him capable? Are the players the right players? What are we going to do to change that?

“Rest assured, we are looking at that and it’s evolving on a daily basis.”

On claims that Singh Johal’s family helped finance the takeover of the club: “Ash’s family has got nothing to do with the running of Morecambe Football Club.

“They’ve never parted with a penny. I was the first person who met Ash back in April last year, because we’d seen the CV. It was through an agent and a recommendation. He wasn’t the only person. There were at least three to five (candidates), if I remember it correctly.

“Some of these guys had slightly different CVs to Ash, some were similar. But we believed in the project. We had a couple of sit downs with Derek (Adams) the previous manager as well.

“With Ash in particular, he’s not related to any of us. His family are not related to any of us. I met his dad once. His mum and dad are in Leicester. It’s got nothing to do with family connections or money coming in from his family whatsoever. He was picked on his credentials. He was picked because we really believe he has the capacity to take the club where we want to take it.

“None of us ever expect our club to be struggling on the pitch. We could never have envisaged this.

“After that first game (a 2-1 win over Altrincham in August), we thought this is going to be too easy. But the reality of football is, it changes every day.

“I’m more concerned about, how do we get to the solutions. You can’t be put to the gallows for trying something. The guys who are putting the money in are more worried than anybody. What can we do to get the results to turn it around.

“Nobody is guaranteed anything. We’ve been on a really crazy journey to get here. We all went through hell to get here. The ideology is to put what we can resource wise into the club, into the team, to try to get the best success.

“Our aim (this season) was to get promoted back to the EFL. It doesn’t look like it now, we know that. The ownership and myself, 24/7, our attention is on how can we improve the situation with results, be it players, the manager, coaching staff, facilities, anything.

“We’ve got six to seven (new players) that we’ve been heavily involved with in the last five to seven days. We know where it’s going wrong. If results are not good, there’s only two aspects, it’s the players, or manager and coaching staff.

“We are looking at everything all the time. The ideology is to turn it around. Football and non-football, as the CEO, the buck stops with myself.”

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s fixture against Scunthorpe, he said: “I think the players know that we have to put a better performance in on Saturday.

“The the game on Tuesday was nowhere near the level that’s required to to compete, let alone win any game. So, so we’ve had a good couple of days of of training where we’ve worked on consistency.

“We’ve worked on making sure the basics, the foundations are there on our performances and that comes before anything we do tactically or technically and the players are focused to make sure they put it right on Saturday.”

Interviewer: “And when you look at Scunthorpe, what sort of challenge do you expect from them to bring to the Mazuma and what makes them a tough opponent?”

Ashvir: “They bring a lot of energy. They’re relentless with the way they attack. So we’ve got to make sure we stop it out source.

“We don’t let them get near our near our box. And they’ve got players that can make a difference in the final third.

“So, for us, it’s going to it’s going to be about putting our stamp on the game, making sure we’re near their box for the majority of the game, but if they do attack, making sure we’re solid and we’re resilient um as we have been in in the last few league games.”

“Make sure we don’t make the mistakes that we have been making.”

Interviewer: “And playing at home again, how important is it for the players to start on the front foot and really connect with the crowd early on?

Ashvir: “Yeah, it’s the most important thing. Our best performances have been when we’ve got momentum straight away when we’ve attacked the opposition, we’ve made sure that from kickoff when we’ve managed to regain the ball, we’ve gone and and attack straight away. So, that’s going to be the focus.”

6-2 FA Trophy defeat to Kidderminster puts more pressure on Morecambe’s Ashvir Singh Johal

Interviewer: “And what’s been the message in training this week?

Ashvir: “Make sure everybody’s at 100%. Make sure everybody’s working to their maximum and making sure everybody’s pushing uh to be the best they can be.

“Anything less than 100% isn’t going to give us a chance to be the best we can be. So, we’ve got to make sure we we approach this game with a very very strong mindset as we did the games against Carlisle and Rochdale and make sure we’re more solid in certain areas.”

Interviewer: “And more than anything, when the final whistle goes on Saturday, what do you want to be able to say about your team’s performance?”

Ashvir: “We’re relentless. We attack with energy. We create lots and lots of chances and and we look to score as many goals as we can, but in the other end we make sure we’re solid and anytime they attack, we win the ball back high.

“We don’t let them get near our box, but then the moments we’re we’re deeper, we we we’re more solid.

“We’re not as open as we were on Tuesday and we look to keep them away from our goal.”