Rovers 3 Owls 0

[Ian]

Another very important win and another three goals. It's been a great week for Rovers. Confidence is high, we are racking up points and scoring goals.

Admittedly, the first half was no great shakes. The ball was up in the air for far too long and Rovers didn't play it on the floor, instead opting for aimless long balls up field. Half time came and this game had 0-0 all over it. Sheff Wed were not without their problems and I couldn't see where a goal was going to come from.

But it all changed in the second half when a 5-minute spell started with Lateef popping up with another goal (great run he's having), their player getting sent off for a foul on Welsh and Goodison heading in the resulting free-kick.

Polished off nicely by Enoch who finished neatly to make it 2 in 2 for him.
Absolutely delighted and the team certainly have got a spring in their step.

Certainly no coincidence that these solid performances and results are coming off the back of a very organised, solid back line. Kay, Goody, McChrystal and Cresswell or performing excellently at the back and it's really showing now.

SWA!!!!!!!!!! =D>

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

The game tonight was no great spectacle for about sixty minutes, but Rovers have rediscovered the wonderful knack of winning matches when not playing particularly well. While some of the play wasn't pretty at times, the goals were fantastic, and we defended very well as Ian says. I think the major factors behind our upturn in form are the back five plus Lateef.

Wednesday dominated possession for long spells, but had no real cutting edge, and to be honest looked much poorer technically and individually than I expected. The first half was a stalemate, but the longer we kept it at 0-0 the more I fancied us to nick the opening goal with the form Lateef has been in recently. It was great to see Enoch get another confidence-boosting goal, but I am afraid Akins returned to type tonight with a poor performance, although he did try hard.

Six points clear of the relegation zone now, and although we have tough away matches coming up, our position is as healthy as it has been for months.

The only disappointment tonight was the poor turnout from our fans, though I think Rovers shot themselves in the foot by charging £21 for a Tuesday night game when Spurs v AC Milan is on the telly.

 

[Sparky]

A brilliant nights work. Good atmosphere with their fans playing their part.

Highlight for me was Goodi kissing the badge in front of the Kop after his goal.

So many players do it when they have just been at a club 5 minutes, but Goodi is a true legend.....=D>

Defence is playing well but Warner looks solid too.

Yeah Akins didnt do anything of any real note I thought, and at 0-0 in the 2nd half I was praying for Robbo to come on for him and win the game for us. But credit to Les and the boys and to be fair to Lucas, he was part of a winning team last Saturday so deserved to keep his place and did nothing wrong last night.

 

[lonerover]

Working in Halifax at the moment so was at the game last night. Have to say after a poor first half that we did really well second. Once we started to play a bit and got hold of their midfield, there was only one team going to win. Can't remember Warner having to make a save?

The back four and keeper are looking really solid which bodes well if they all stay fit. McChrystal has really impressed me with what I've seen, no nonsense solid defender.

Lateef is an inspiration outwide, shame that we're not going be able to sign him permanently, hope we can sort something to keep him for the rest of the season.

Enoch's work rate is tremendous and really pleased to see him get his goal with a really cool finish....you can't ask anything more from him. Looks like ref's will not give him anything either!!!

Overall great 3 points and am feeling really positive about mid table safety now, and who knows maybe a late run at the play offs??

Only area to look at would creativity in the middle of our midfield. Ladabie and Welsh great workers, but Taylor's distribution needs work. Guess that's why Robinson and Weir have been brought in.

Can't complain though....Les for manager of the month??

 

[NeverBeatDaveHiggins]

I really don't understand the criticism aimed at Taylor's passing.

He's not in the team for that. A lot of plaudits have been aimed at the back four, and they've done a great job individually and collectively and it's brilliant to at last go from game to game without changes to the back four. But Taylor deserves a huge huge amount of credit. He has been working tirelessly in front of the defense, stopping the attacks before they reach our back line. People have correctly mentioned that we look stronger, steadier that teams end up playing in front of us more rather than cutting us open.. it all comes from having a player sitting in front of the defence and breaking things up.

In 90 minutes of football he only did one pass of the type that people say 'typical ash taylor',... looks like he's kicking for touch! But most of his passes against Wednesday were five yarders, square, keeping possession. That's precisely what we've all been wishing he'd learn to do instead of punting it. Even saw one little cushioning header down to Welsh who promptly thumped it out, cue groans, Welsh is one of our more experienced players and Taylor seems now one of our most composed midfielders! He still is a young player and it seems to me to already be a very valuable player in our team with room to get even better. I'm confident that he's being handled well by Les and Kev.

 

[NeverBeatDaveHiggins]

More concerning has to be Labadie's disciplinary record. I think he's on 9 yellows now, so just 1 more for a compulsory 2 match ban. That's more likely the reason for loaning the Sunderland lad.

Oh and while mentioning labadie, he really should have been booked for playing on after the ref's whistle, ran right around a wednesday player shoving for the ball, then slid around him to tackle all after the whistle had gone. That's a yellow card offense. The Wednesday player then retaliated by stamping on Labadie's leg, which was pretty vicious and I felt deserved a straight red for violent conduct... but the ref booked neither of them.

 

[Mal]

Well, at the 6 points out of 12 I forecast, already. Seems strange that when we win convincingly, there are a lot less posts on here. Shellshock or do people not have anything to moan about?

I think Peterborough will be a challenge as they are free-scoring but given that we have also scored 6 in 2, then it is bound to be 0-0.

It's good to be able to look forward to reading reports. There were two Tranmere players in the League One team of the week in the N of T W for the Plymouth game.

 

[Mal]

You should read this. Apparently we are a poor side :0)
http://owlsalive.com/RamblesTranmereAway.html

 

[Boz]

Can sympathise with the Owls fan, we've all felt like that sometimes. I wasn't there, but get the impression that over the match as a whole, the scoreline flatters Rovers. A good result nonetheless.

Some interesting points about players. Certainly there were those too ready to dismiss McChrystal on the basis of a 10-minute appearance when he'd just arrived. Doesn't he look half decent now, hope we can hang onto him after the end of the season.

I'm an Ash Taylor fan, but long-term, see him deployed mainly as a central defender, he wins so many headers. Good to hear his distribution is improving too.

Guess one of the reasons we got Joss is the "suspect temprament" However I'm more concern about his lack of goals and he doesn't seem to be creating as much as last season.

Alliyu seems to be getting better agree with LoneRover, it would be great if we could do a deal to keep him until the end of the season.

One thing that did puzzle me; no subs. Given we were winning comfortably against 10 men, would certainly have used the chance to blood Weir.

 

[Ian]

You should read this. Apparently we are a poor side :0)
http://owlsalive.com/RamblesTranmereAway.html

I think he was fookin' pissed off :roll:

Wed are a frail team at the moment. They played a decent first half, certainly passed it around better but there was absolutely no end product. Let's not forget they were up against a pretty mean defence too! :-D

Whereas Rovers' fortunes are on the turn at the moment and you could see Rovers getting into the game the longer it went on. Confidence grew as it has been recently and we scored a few good goals. 3-0 may have been a little generous at the final whistle but maybe a little harsh to say we were poor. If we are poor, god knows what category he puts his own team in (a fookin' bad one probably!)

 

[bigmart]

ha ha that was funny to read, for the first hour we were poor and mainly just hoofing the ball but they were not much better.

The goal changed the game and for the last half hour we were very comfortable indeed, id like to see us pass the ball more instead of just aimless hoof towards enoch but happy to take another 3 points

 

[The Bootle Rover]

Good for Les

Les is putting together a decent squad, a forward looking one too in acknowledging we will probably sell a couple of the younger ones in the summer.

Great to have Ash Taylor in the team, perferming so well and working hard enough to make Welsh look almost redundant.

The young players are doing really well with perhaps only Cresswell slightly underperforming.

Anyone missing Ronnie Moores son? No, me neither, what a remarkable and improved work rate up front we now have.

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

While Wednesday had a fair amount of possession last night, I don't think the scoreline actually flattered us at all, at least no more than Bournemouth's and Brentford's 3-0 victories over us flattered them.

At the moment we are mean at the back and ruthless in taking chances, and let's face it, scoring goals and keeping the other side out is what footie is all about, not possession stats.

However, in terms of the style of play I would agree that we should pass the ball more (as we did at Plymouth) rather than going for the long option every time. I think we are actually capable of much better football than even the players themselves realise at times.

 

[SonkORLY?]

I really don't understand the criticism aimed at Taylor's passing.

He's not in the team for that.

If you want to call yourself a midfielder, you absolutely have to be able to pass the ball better than Ash does. He's a really promising center-half doing a decent job out of position, as far as I'm concerned. Nobody's expecting him to create a great deal but his simple sideways distribution should be a lot better than it is.

On Tues night we defended well but (predictably) showed little quality in the final third - a small miracle that we scored three goals. Cresswell was my MOTM, but the whole back 4 are looking really good at the moment. Looking forward to the return of Jennings. Lateef's pretty good but Akins is dreadful and Enoch hasn't been much better over the past few months. Allow me a rare "the grass is always greener" moment; do we not have any kids that could play instead of Akins? They couldn't be much worse.

 

[Tartantranmere64]

You should read this. Apparently we are a poor side :0)
http://owlsalive.com/RamblesTranmereAway.html

You have to laugh, don't you? Oh dear, poor little long chins! That rant sounds like it came straight off our forum two months ago.

How times change!

Brilliant win, good vibe, hopefully we've finally turned the corner and the ghost of John Barnes has been laid to rest at last. If we can hang in there our run in (last six games) look promising. You never know... we might escape relegation on the second last game of the season this time! \\/

 

[DIW]

Ha ha! Just read it. It's true though, we did score from our first meaningful attempt on goal (how much more meaningful can an attempt be than one that goes in!!!) but I don't remember them having a 'meaningful' attempt throughout the whole match, or warner making one save.

To lose to a truly poor side, you have to be a truly poor side.

Incidentally on the night, the red card (from where i was) looked very harsh. Just seen the replay on the the TV and it was a disgusting leg breaker tackle. Well deserved to go. Some similar views on here too.

http://www.owlstalk.co.uk/forums/index.php?showtopic=146462

 

[Rockford's Love Child]

we defended well but (predictably) showed little quality in the final third - a small miracle that we scored three goals.

A very harsh judgement I think. While we didn't play any, to quote Gary Megson, 'champagne football', the delivery into the box for two of the goals was great, as was Lateef's leap for his header. Enoch's goal was a neat finish too, the sign of a striker growing in confidence again.

I would also say that Enoch worked tirelessly and made a terrific contribution to the team during the period when his goals dried up.

 

[SonkORLY?]

A very harsh judgement I think. While we didn't play any, to quote Gary Megson, 'champagne football', the delivery into the box for two of the goals was great, as was Lateef's leap for his header. Enoch's goal was a neat finish too, the sign of a striker growing in confidence again.

I would also say that Enoch worked tirelessly and made a terrific contribution to the team during the period when his goals dried up.

It's not very often that we score every chance we create in a game! We crafted 3 clear cut chances and put them all away. It's brilliant, but 3-0 victories normally come hand in hand with displays more dominant than ours was on Tuesday.

Enoch works hard when he feels like it but I could do that. He needs to be scoring more often. To be honest, his career is a dry patch.

 

[Red Devil]

Oh is it too much to hope for? Have Rovers turned the corner? I do hope so. Well played last two games lads. Dead chuffed.

 

[Ian]

Enoch works hard when he feels like it but I could do that. He needs to be scoring more often.

You've disliked Enoch from the moment he joined Tranmere. You actually wrote him off before he'd played a game if I remember.

He actually has a better goal ratio than ITM. His work rate is top notch. I've always liked that about him.