CHESTER slipped closer to the relegation trap door on Saturday as they crashed to their fifth successive Coca-Cola League Two loss.
For the second week running Mark Wright’s under-strength side gifted their opponents a three-goal half-time lead.
And, although they showed plenty of spirit in an encouraging second-half display, it was not enough to halt a nine-match winless run which means they are now just seven points above second-from-bottom but rapidly-improving Bournemouth.
City manager Wright, whose injury woes were compounded when top scorer Ryan Lowe limped off, said: “We’re making basic errors which have to be eliminated and I think they’re happening because the boys are feeling a bit sorry for themselves.
“So it’s up to us, the management team, to put it right in training because it isn’t right to concede goals like that. It’s a poor show and we must be better than that.”
Wright, who is hoping the transfer embargo imposed on the club will be lifted this week, was also left to bemoan his lack of a recognised striker, as with one, Chester could have got something out of the Christie Park clash.
They started the brighter, with captain Paul Linwood’s header from a Lowe free-kick forcing Barry Roche into an early save, but it was Morecambe who took the lead in the 15th minute when Aaron Taylor beat goalkeeper John Danby to head in Michael Twiss’s near-post corner.
And the hosts doubled their advantage in the 33rd minute when a cross from Neil Wainwright was only half cleared, allowing Wayne Curtis to slot home.
City needed a response and they would have got one had Dave Artell not cleared Kevin Roberts’s header off the line and had the bar not denied the returning David Mannix from the corner that followed.
But it was the Shrimps who struck next when Curtis smashed in an unstoppable drive after the ball broke to him on the edge of the area a minute before the interval.
Chester, to their credit, took control after the break and reduced the deficit in the 51st minute when Laurence Wilson raced on to Lowe’s pass down the left and showed great composure to cut inside on to his right foot before slipping a shot past Roche.
City are away to play-off chasing Shrewsbury Town tomorrow (7.45pm).
MORECAMBE: Roche, Yates, Artell, Bentley, Adams, Wainwright, Hunter, Drummond, Curtis, Twiss, Taylor (O’Carroll 79). Subs: Davies, Bell, McStay, Howe.
CHESTER: Danby, Vaughan (Jones 37), Rule, Roberts, Linwood, Wilson, Barry, Mannix (Rutherford 79), Harris, Ellison, Lowe (Smith 89). Subs: Platt, Owen.
REFEREE: Andy Penn (West Midlands).
ATTENDANCE: 1,795.
