Morecambe boss Bentley: Pressure is on Accrington

Bentley’s men are 19th in League 2 having lost four of their last five while John Coleman’s side moved into the automatic places with a 2-0 win at Luton last time out.

The Shrimps boss, who takes his side to the Wham Stadium on Saturday, said: “I have to say the pressure’s on them as they’re at home going for promotion.

“It looks like we’re definitely clear of relegation now with the result for Dagenham in the week (a 1-0 defeat at Luton).

“It’s not mathematically sorted but both teams in the bottom two will have to win five out of five.

“It’s a game where we want to put right what happened the week before and we’re looking forward to it.

“We’ve had a decent enough week. We’ll have a couple of days looking at Accrington to see how we can impose ourselves on them because that’s what we want to do.”

Many would argue the pressure is on Bentley however, a difficult season for The Shrimps having hit a new low with the 5-2 defeat at home to Hartlepool on Saturday.

The Morecambe manager however doesn’t believe his future in any way depends on a positive result this weekend.

Bentley said: “It was one of those performances where with the run we’d have been on there would had been no questions asked (if he’d been sacked).

“We’ve had a lot of things go against us this season. It has been disappointing and we’ve underachieved.

“These things do happen but at the end of the day for with what we’ve got and the resources we’ve got we’ll still be a Football League club next season.

“That’s not me being negative and that’s not what we set our stall our to do, just stay up.

“We all had ambitions of doing what Accrington have done.

“Every year it happens where one team jumps out of the pack and other teams slip but it’s a difficult league and we haven’t been good enough.

“I wouldn’t say I need a result or anything like that. We’ll have to learn from this season but all I’m focusing on at the moment is preparing for Accrington.”

Of all the things to win fans round it might just be doing the double of Stanley, The Shrimps having picked up their first Football League win over Stanley at the 17th attempt with a 1-0 win at the Globe Arena back in August.

It would also be all the sweeter as it would hurt Accrington’s promotion hopes.

Bentley said: “Morecambe fans will want that because that’s the way it is with rivalries.

“I’ve got a lot of time for John Coleman and Jimmy Bell though and they have done well and had a very good season.

“They look like they’re on the up but it’s all about us and we want to win.

“It would be nice to win for of our sake because we want to finish the season strongly but it’ll give the fans bragging rights too because doing the double over them in one season would be brilliant after all the years of hurt.”