Tranmere 2 - 1 Yeovil

[NeverBeatDaveHiggins]

Made up for Ian Moore. He needed a goal and you could tell from his reaction to scoring for us today how he felt. Then went on an played like a man possessed. Let's hope his confidence grows and grows from this. As much as it pains me, I also have to give Ian Goodison huge credit for the goal, as he kept the play alive and made a great pass in the build up.

Ash Taylor the other goalscorer for us, clearly Yeovil hadn't been watching our set pieces as we used one that's won us a game before, passing around the wall and driving it in to the middle hard and low.

Whisper it, but if we win our home games....

 

[bring back the cowshed!]

Just the tonic we needed, as even a draw would have left us well adrift. That's three months undefeated at home in the league.

Les obviously reads White Review as he took our advice and switched to 442.

We now go into Saturday with some confidence, although anything from the Valley would be a bonus.

Then it's on to February where there are some great opportunities to pick up points and maybe even get out of the bottom four.

 

[My only Rovers]

great result ,first half was one of the worst i have seen ,but second was a lot better ,the first goal seemed to kick start are game i never seen ian moore play so well since he was 19. thought the atmosphere was poor could even hear the 40 Yeovil fans singing .After watching the game, we should be were Yeovil are in the league If it wasn't for the chuckle brothers we probarly would be

 

[SCooperSomersaults]

Agree with the majority of the above. The first half was abysmal - by both teams. Conditions weren't great and the pitch a bit boggy it seemed, but there was no excuse for that. I had to remind myself I was watching PROFESSIONAL footballers, it was that bad.

Thankfully the second half improved immeasureably. It was vital we got the early goal and that seemed to give us a great lift. We went on to get the second soon after, and started to play the ball about much better and the confidence visably rose among the team.

Then, as usual, we took the foot off the pedal, became very lax and gave the ball away too often and made silly mistakes and in the end gave away a soft penalty which made it more nail biting than it should have been.

Make no mistake, Yeovil are a poor side. At least on tonight's showing. We could and should have won by more goals to help our dreadful goal difference, but silly lapses of concentration meant it was closer than it should have been. Need to improve thaat big time ahead of the trip to the Valley on Saturday.

However, all that said, it was VITAL we won, and we did. Second half display showed glimpses of what we can do, and Shukes had a good 2nd half and ran at them and caused a lot of problems for their defence. Be nice to see more of that in the 2nd half of the season.

 

[The Bootle Rover]

A hard earned 3 points

Delighted with the points, shame about the first half, the less said the better.
We really need to build on this and I think we can. Many of our players are similar in qualities and effort so I think more effective use of a sub or two would reap dividends. Tiring players - and why not give instruction to one or two to work their bollocks off in the first half putting enormous pressure on opponents - can be replaced as part of team tactics. Surely it cant make sense to have players on the bench never getting on to the pitch.

I remain completely unimpressed by Shuker, once again he mostly gave the ball away or fell over screaming foul. When he did decide to join in in the second half what little he did proved fruitless. The sooner we get shut the better.

Barnett is the player I think we must bring in , he is more creative and can score and is an altogether better player all round.

Come on Les, be brave, we may still go down but lets be creative in an attempt to stay up.

 

[Boz]

BootleRover, while you make some valid points, in particular with regard to subs, I do not understand the stream of bile that you spew out in relation to Chris Shuker. He was involved in the 2nd goal, had another effort on target and the improvement in the 2nd half was partly attributed by Les to Shuker getting more of the ball. While I'm puzzled that Barnett hasn't been involved more, what he offers is different to Shukes and is more suited to replacing McLaren or Welsh.

 

[NeverBeatDaveHiggins]

Shukes out wide is quite frustrating. He'll do something good one minute and something god awful the next minute. Most wingers are like that but the positive contribution is supposed to outweigh the bad bits. Against Yeovil the frustration for me was that he'd beat the man but the delivery of the cross would be terrible.

That said, he was playing on the left wing rather than his preferred right, and was against arguably Yeovil's best player, the full back. I suspect Shukes was picked to play there to keep him pegged back, and if that's the case it was a success.

I'm not totally convinced with Shuker out wide being his best position, his crosses are not good enough much too much of the time. I'd really like to see him played as one of the front three instead of the midfield. Better still, dropped off the front two 4-3-1-2 with Shuker completely free to roam where-ever he wants to.. this does require the front two to be extremely mobile, but I think with Gornell and Moore we have that.

 

[SonkORLY?]

In all honesty I would happily exchange the place of any of our current 3/4 (depending on formation) midfielders to give Barnett a start. he's just far too good to be sat on our bench; makes makes me wonder if Parry is leaving him out simply because he doesn't like him. Everyone knows he'd move on given half an oppertunity - he had a good go over the summer (and why shouldn't he) - and his past issues with RM were fairly well publicised...but it would seem petty to leave one of our best players on the bench for non-footballing reasons given that we're currently locked in a battle against relegation.

Shuker, like the rest of the team, perked up after we went 2-0 up. Alcock is a very good full-back at this level and for Shuker to be stuck out on the left hand side against such a player and still have some effect on the game was fairly impressive. When constantly shown outside onto his left-foot (Alcock quickly worked out he was right footed), Shukes wasn't afraid to have a go at crossing with his weaker side. It's tough playing on the wrong flank, and I don't see why you think his performance on Saturday merited a particular singling out.

Still waiting for Cresswell to make a return as well.

 

[drwhoman]

Yeovil Game

Agree with all of this but they still need more upfront. I am sure Bas will throw his weight around and may create more chances for the others but lack of goals is going to be our downfall particularly away from home Hope for something from the Addicks game but logic says 0-2. I hope to be surprised! I see Eccleston who I mentioned the other day has gone to Huddersfield on loan. I suppose we simply cannot afford even Liverpool reserves! In the circumstances Barnett is definetely worth a go - he is skilful and knows where the goal is unlike one or two of his colleagues!