Colchester vs Morecambe Predictions

Morecambe will be looking to climb off the foot of the table when they go to take on Colchester at Colchester Community Stadium on Saturday afternoon. In contrast, the hosts are looking to move into the play-off places.

Colchester’s start to the new campaign has been a steady one. They’re currently in 8^th place, just two points outside of the coveted play-off places and have thus built themselves a solid platform from which to move forward. They do come into this match off the back of tasting defeat on the road last time out, though they aren’t likely to be too disheartened as their home form has been good.

Since losing somewhat unjustly to Cambridge back in mid-August, Colchester have gone four unbeaten at home, three of which they’ve won, while they also knocked Premier League Tottenham out of the League Cup in front of a home crowd, so they’re clearly no mugs. At home in League 2, John McGreal’s men have scored a respectable eight goals in five games, while they’ve conceded five. Such numbers aren’t amazing, but they’re certainly not poor.

While Colchester have been solid at home, Morecambe have been dreadful on their travels. Saturday’s visitors have taken just four points from six away matches, while they come into this game off the back of losing each of their last four travelling games, conceding three goals in each of those four.

In the final third, Morecambe’s efforts have been weak, especially on their travels, but their biggest problem is at the other end of the pitch. Both conceding chances and conceding goals is something that the Shrimps have done every time they’ve played away from home. They’ve shipped a worrying total of 14 and are surrendering an average of 1.9 expected goals.

As they’re up against bottom-of-the-league opposition, Colchester will be the fancy of many punters this weekend, though backing them to simply win makes little sense at the current prices. Instead, ‘Colchester to Win & Both Teams to Score’ appeals. Going forward, the hosts have more than enough about them to hurt Morecambe’s dodgy rear-guard, though McGreal’s men do have a bit of a tendency to concede, so backing them to outscore their opposition, who for all their struggles have scored six in six on the road this term, rather than grind out a low-scoring win appears to be the best option.