And so our run of poor performances continues, and I hate to say it, and no doubt will be castigated by some on here, but in my view Mellon is losing the plot. He seems totally incapable of identifying, and subsequently addressing the problems in our dire performances over the last few games. He says in his previous post-match interview that as manager he is ultimately responsible for team performance and was "looking for a response" in today's game after the Grimsby shambles. Well I'm afraid he failed to get that response and so game after game we are seeing a failure to redress the problems. Today, as in the first Oxford City game we were lucky to escape with a draw at home to a team 71 places below us in the pyramid. The result wasn't so much that Southport were a fantastic team it was more to do with the abysmal Tranmere performance. The injuries to DMH, Gilmour and, presumably, Mullin certainly had a negative impact but that in no way excuses the dire performance of the team. Time and again we were lumping the ball long to Norwood only to see it returned by their centre-backs with possession turned over every time. We could not keep control of the ball on the ground, failed to play any meaningful football resulting in Norwood having to try to feed off scraps, as evidenced by us having only 3 shots on target. As RLC says above, what on earth were Mellon and Jackson thinking bringing Buxton on on the hour mark when they had Stockton on the bench and Jennings available to slot into the midfield gap left by Gilmour's injury. Were they looking to shore up the defence/midfield who were badly missing McCullough's defensive influence and hang on to the slender 1-0 lead...if so it failed miserably when Southport equalised 10 minutes later. Despite goalmouth clearances at both ends late on it was amazing to think that we only avoided defeat thanks to Devarn Green, who could only make the Southport bench, missing a golden opportunity when running clear of our defence. People may talk of "blips" in performance levels but in my view something is fundamentally wrong with the managements ability to clearly address the team formation and strategy issues, and this has been the case for some time now, Next Saturday we entertain a Cambridge United side devoid of a manager and lying just above the relegation zone, a game you would expect us in normal circumstances to pick up 3 points but as things stand at the moment you would be very brave betting on us getting anything out of the game.