• 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.

Friendly Pre season friendlies

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Interesting that Hockenhull never came off the bench which suggests he's unlikely to be a starter early on.
I think he will start ahead of Robinson. I would guess Mellon wanted to have a look at the trialist and Robinson today, or possibly Hockenhull had a knock.
 

bigmart

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Micky said Davies has bone bruising and hasn't done any training since the Preston game so unlikely be involved for a few games by sounds of it.
 

Ian

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Loved that interview.
 

Ian

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“You wanted risk, you’re going to get it”.

Wow. This season could be interesting.
 
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Have we got a new manager? This guy looks a lot like Micky Mellon but doesn’t sound like him. ;)

Seriously, Micky’s best interview by far. I’ve never heard him so upbeat, proud to explain what he is doing and confident of success. If he can get that message to the players, we could be in for a great season.

The key message for me was about risk. He/we are expecting young players to attack rather than play the safe option. That means inevitably they will make mistakes, like Doohan for Huddersfield’s second goal. We have to be ready for this and not be too critical or the players will lose confidence and the new plan will fail.
 

Sparky

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I do wonder with micky whether he either goes on forums or has plenty of people asking him in the street about when we’re bringing a striker in and questioning our lack of entertaining football last season. He does come across almost a bit defensive at times saying “don’t blame me” a couple of times. suggesting when we lose games 4-3 because we get so many players forward it wont be his fault. He mentioned last seasons clean sheets and that we won’t get as many now. Then he mentioned Norwood a couple of times. He’s making it very obvious to opposition what our style of play will be and I just hope we haven’t gone from one extreme I.e. both conceding and scoring few, to the total opposite, when perhaps a happy medium is available. Time will tell.

to be fair he is doing a decent job about managing expectations about the budget which is good management, I just wonder have we spent too much on defenders and midfielders, not to mention three keepers (Murphy could still do a job), and leaving not much left in the pot for arguably the most important part of the pitch I.e. scoring goals.

Davies doesn’t sound like he’ll be ready for next Saturday But it sounds like any new striker coming in may be a bargain basement one.
 
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Regarding the balance of the squad, I think we have to remember that midfielders can also score (and create) goals, and we already have an expensive striker in Hemmings. It was always unlikely that we could afford another striker of similar calibre, other than a player with injury issues like Glatzel.

I would guess MP communicates the mood of the supporters to Mellon in their regular meetings.
 
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Sparky

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Regarding the balance of the squad, I think we have to remember that midfielders can also score (and create) goals, and we already have an expensive striker in Hemmings. It was always unlikely that we could afford another striker of similar calibre, other than a plyer with injury issues like Glatzel.

I would guess MP communicates the mood of the supporters to Mellon in their regular meetings.
Yes and in the Palios Q and A mark said he wanted “goals, goals, goals” next season so I’m sure micky has said well if that’s what you want then fine but it will come at a risk.

I agree about midfielders. Losing Morris is a blow but hawkes and mclear will hopefully chip in and Lewis is a goal threat if he plays. Plus getting Cogley and Bristow forward will enhance our options.
 

Outoftowner

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Obviously he’s been told to be more adventurous this season and to stop the negativity (thank god !) - I recon this interview is Micky laying the land for it not working (“I told you so”) I do hope it works but if it doesn’t it’s still down to Micky / the tactics and team are all his, so let’s hope it’s a good start / if not I fear he will quickly revert to the crap we endured last season !
 

ALDO MUSSY

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fair play to MM he has laid it out bare and now we will just get on with it we all asked for it last season and we wanted a more adventurous team and looks like we will get our wish it's going to be fun that's for sure, I for one is happy and yes we will take some pastings but that's football so good on Micky and can,t wait for next week 6-0 rovers that's the positive in me and I would love Nevitt to get 3 and Hemming too bring it on
 

Ian

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He makes a fair point about the strikers too which makes me think we are in for a Hemmings / Nevitt partnership for most of the season unless someone finds a gem from the player database!
 

ALDO MUSSY

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yea I also think Glatzil will be back when fit and I think Burton will have a part to play
 

Boz

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That's an interesting interview with Micky and I wouldn't take issue with anything he says about the current situation. The reality is that the tight defensive approach away from home didn't work in the end, maybe it could have if we'd been able to recruit some defensive alternatives in January to allow some rotation, but all history now. The way we set up to play this season promises to be entertaining.

Onto the game; I thought Rovers played very well in the first half, eventually got the lead through a decent finish from McAlear, but then conceded an equaliser, which was a good finish, but where we'd been unable to get the ball away. The second half saw two errors sandwich a very good goal for the 3 the visitors added. Rovers had 3 very good chances of our own, you have to feel that Hemmings should have converted the excellent delivery from Nevitt and Nolan was given a great opportunity by the trialist, while a late Merrie effort from outside the box tested the keeper. It didn't feel like a 1-4.

Defensively, we need to sort the goalkeeping out. Doohan didn't look very confident and someone needs to look at mixing it up when distributing from the back, there were times when Ross would have been better bowling the ball to the wing-backs rather than playing the ball out on the floor, which allowed the opponents to press. Wasn't sure from Micky's interview whether he was under orders to mainly play it that way. The three central defenders all did ok, but I didn't get the impression that there was a clear leader/organiser amongst them. Both wing-backs played well, although Bristow was a bit raw at times and the obvious talent needs careful nurturing.

McAlear and O'Connor both impressed in midfield, while Hawkes had his moments in a freer role. McAlear has the potential to become a real crowd favourite, chipped in with a decent strike, but battled for everything.

Up front Nevitt had a really good game despite not getting on the score-sheet, with the pick being the chance he created for Hemmings. Think it might have been worth letting him play the full 90 to try and get a pre-season goal. The trialist, was it the lad from Burnley, didn't manage to make much impression aside from setting up Nolan for the spurned chance. Think we'd need to see more before offering him a deal.

Nolan probably the best of the subs, getting into some good positions. Lewis was disappointing. It was a shame the likes of Burton and Taylor didn't feature on the bench, while we seem to have stuck to broadly the same line-ups and tactics during pre-season.
 
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Sparky

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Thanks Boz. I got the impression from mickeys interview he wants us to play out from the back which is an example of his risk instead of Clarke lumping it long like last season.

I wasn’t at the game today but I do wonder if we should have kept Murphy as number one and used Doohans wage on a striker.

I stand corrected but Murphy did well last season and whilst I can partly understand moving Clarke on due to our new high line, did we really need to bring Ross back?

RLC mentioned some good saves from Doohan and overall he did ok last season but did end up getting dropped.
 
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I think Doohan will be fine in the medium term. He made one error today, but overall his distribution was good.

I get the impression that Murphy himself does not want to play regularly this season, and we also have Hewelt who has played fifty per cent of the pre-season games and looks pretty decent.
 

Boz

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Sparky, there's more than one way of playing out from the back and I was unsure if Doohan was under orders to expressly distribute on the ground rather than, for example. bowl out or roll on the ground for a player to run onto. It felt a bit predictable.

I thought Ross did some good things today, a decent save with his legs and came off his line to claim the ball a few times. Not seen Hewelt play, but like RLC get the impression Murphy's keeping role is very much going on the back burner.
 
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