• Nigel Adkins has been given the Tranmere job on a permanent basis signing until the end of the 25/26 season. Continue the discussion here.

Rovers 1, Oldham 0

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Alan King, Barry Dyson
Thank you, Max.

Thanks also to Carlisle, Hartlepool, MK Dons and Walsall.

And I suppose thanks too to Doncaster. Even though you are now five points ahead of us at the top, thanks to you Bournemouth are now five points behind us in 7th.

That's the sort of match we need to win. A few more one-nils, please. From the live text, it sounded a very scrappy, close game. Looking forward to the reports.
 
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Jason Koumas / John Morrissey
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A game that was every bit as tense and competitive as most of us imagined, but one I think we deserved to win. We showed a great attitude in difficult circumstances and played the better football, in the first 25 minutes of the first half at least. Power's goal was worthy of winning any game; it seems he does not score tap-ins.

I thought the Palmer-Corry-Power combo in midfield worked well early on, with Palmer doing the necessary spade work to allow Corry to have the ball in time and space, which he has not had in previous games. However, Ronnie was right to move Max back into the middle at the start of the second half when we seemed to be running out of steam, and he really drove us forward from that point onwards.

I thought Bell-Baggie was really lively, and Amoo had his best game for us today. Akpro is struggling for form but was still a willing runner.

Oldham relied almost totally on an ugly, long ball game with hoofs up to Smith, who is admittedly a very awkward customer. This caused us more problems as the game progressed, although their best chances probably came after he went off; I was convinced Baxter's free kick off the crossbar was in.

Man of the match was probably Max, but I thought there were many good individual performances, and the clean sheet was vital.

We are now two points off second, five ahead of 7th, and the season is very much alive. Well done Rovers.
 

SonkORLY?

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Eddy Sonko
I think Oldham have a right to leave PP feeling a little hard done to. JLAA got away with a rather blatant (and bizarre) handball defending a corner in the first half, they hit the bar from Baxter's free kick and had two other opportunities which had OFW either beaten or scrambling. That's not to say we didn't have half-chances of our own, but I really felt like it could have gone either way. It's one thing to dig in and scrape a result, and I know confidence is low, but successfully leaving 10 men in your own half with 20 minutes to go defending a 1-0 lead at home to side in the relegation zone isn't really something to sing and dance about. Credit the effort, and the victory could be huge for us, but we need to be a bit smarter from now on.

Corry needs to disappear. Palmer, Power and ABB played well in spite of him. Goody and Ash coped well against an awkward front pairing. JLAA needs to hit form, even when starved of service. Hope O'Halloran is ok.
 
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I think Oldham have a right to leave PP feeling a little hard done to. JLAA got away with a rather blatant (and bizarre) handball defending a corner in the first half, they hit the bar from Baxter's free kick and had two other opportunities which had OFW either beaten or scrambling. That's not to say we didn't have half-chances of our own, but I really felt like it could have gone either way.

It could have gone the other way, but the important thing is that it did not. We showed the character that has been lacking in recent weeks to grind the result out. I thought we also got back to playing some decent football in patches.

The JLAA incident was a blatant penalty, but so what ? Refereeing decisions have almost derailed our season in recent weeks. Swings and roundabouts.

We did defend too deep, too early, but that has to be viewed in the context of our recent form and the importance of the game. I am prepared to give the players credit today.
 

SonkORLY?

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It was a good game between two teams low on confidence but with a lot to fight for. I'm glad we won but I'm just saying that I don't think we were any better than they were, and as such they have a right to feel disappointed that they didn't take anything from the game.
 

DIW

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I think Oldham have a right to leave PP feeling a little hard done to. JLAA got away with a rather blatant (and bizarre) handball defending a corner in the first half, they hit the bar from Baxter's free kick and had two other opportunities which had OFW either beaten or scrambling. That's not to say we didn't have half-chances of our own, but I really felt like it could have gone either way. It's one thing to dig in and scrape a result, and I know confidence is low, but successfully leaving 10 men in your own half with 20 minutes to go defending a 1-0 lead at home to side in the relegation zone isn't really something to sing and dance about. Credit the effort, and the victory could be huge for us, but we need to be a bit smarter from now on.

Corry needs to disappear. Palmer, Power and ABB played well in spite of him. Goody and Ash coped well against an awkward front pairing. JLAA needs to hit form, even when starved of service. Hope O'Halloran is ok.

This is spot on. Max did well and showed some real drive going forward to score. 3 very welcome points.
 

WildRover

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Cant wait for next season, whichever division we are in, with a midfield pairing of Max and Wallace, with robbo and Abs on either wing, JLAA and stockton up front....
 

Ian

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Scrappy game which either side could have won. More importantly our league position is a lot healthier tonight.

Without Robinson we lack someone that will grab the bull by the horns but Max scored a great goal which made the difference.

Smith gave us a couple of problems and defence were shaky at times but calmed down in the second half.

Wasn't impressed with Corry, didn't think he was in the game at all. Same with Amoo. Bell-Baggie did well down the left however.

Hope this win starts a mini revival.


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bigmart

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Agree with most of what has already been said, we certainly got away with a pen as JLAA clearly handled the ball. Smith is a handfull but is a bit of a yard dog, wins a few headers but has no stamina at all.

A very welcome 3 points indeed, i really enjoyed the players celebrations in front of the kop at the end and ever more enjoyable was the fact that we had 5 home grown players on the pitch at the end.
 
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Agreed with everything that has been said but we must all agree that the appalling state of the pitch is not helping us. It is, as Ronnie says, unplayable. Despite the terrible weather surely the groundstaff can do a bit better?
 

Ian

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Pitch wasn't that bad and its the same for both teams. Are we going to start blaming our inability to pass on a bad pitch?


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bigmart

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Pitch not great but not as bad as some are trying to make out. There are a lot of clubs with pitches that are not in a good state at the moment which is undertsandable with the weather we have had
 

WildRover

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pitch looks awful, but wait until next month when its more sand than grass!
 

SonkORLY?

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tbf some of the bobbles were proper sunday league. kind of expect better at professional level.
 

Higgy

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The pitch may have been same for both teams, but Oldham don't play the ball on the pitch - so bigger problem for us. May contribute to Corry not being on his game, although I believe he will play at a higher level as he doe have a touch of class.
 

bigmart

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The pitch may have been same for both teams, but Oldham don't play the ball on the pitch - so bigger problem for us. May contribute to Corry not being on his game, although I believe he will play at a higher level as he doe have a touch of class.

Oldham actually mixed it up with some balls for Smith in the air but especially in the latter stages of the first half they passed it round on the floor.
 

Ian

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Yet to be convinced by Corry. White as a sheet when he went off.


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Boz

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A game where the result was more important than the performance. That said, I would agree that Oldham could feel hard done to not getting something out of the game, in which both sides seemed fairly toothless and only separated by a moment of brilliance from Max Power. Credit to Ronnie, he did a lot of yelling and urging the players forward when they were starting to sit too deep after we'd
gone in front.

I wasn't convinced by the starting line-up, especially how the midfield was set out. Corry in the middle just didn't work but if he had to be there, then move Palmer, who's played wide for Wednesday out and leave Max in the centre. Things certainly took an upturn when Max was moved into the middle of the park.

Defensively, things were incredibly nervy. OFW belying his Welsh roots by kicking for touch, Zoum below par, Goodi a mix of presence and mistake; he made a couple of slip-ups in dangerous positions, which could, against more capable opponents, have been punished. Ash seemed to be pulled out of position initially, but settled down and along with Danny turned in a steady performance.

Attack was generally woeful. JLAA looked rather out of sorts, Amoo got himself into some semi-decent positions, but invariably made the wrong choice. Bell-Baggie drifted in and out of the game though did make one very good slide tackle. Stockton was too lazy, when he did bother to close down and harry, the Oldham defence looked troubled under pressure.
 
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I agree that Fon Williams' kicking was very poor. I think this is generally a big weakness in his game and something he needs to work on.

I was more impressed by the midfield featuring Corry than everyone else and I thought we played some decent football in the early stages. Given Walsall's free-scoring form, I wouldn't be surprised to see us start with something similar on Tuesday, rather than a straight 4-4-2.
 

Ian

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Stockton was too lazy, when he did bother to close down and harry, the Oldham defence looked troubled under pressure.
Very good point actually. Oldham defence did look shaky when under pressure and I was hoping for more from Stockton when he came on. He looked like he's been playing for 70 minutes. He's going to be a real frustrating player. Can be really good at times, but needs to put more effort in. He's a big lad, he should be using some of his weight to unnerve the defence.
 
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