The whole matchday experience was superb, Champagne on arrival, 3 course meal, refreshments at half time, cheese board at full time. A tour of the ground with a pre match briefing from the manager! ( Funnily enough Shirtliff was doing this as Wilson was bollocking a certain Mr Austin ) Followed by a meet and greet with some of the players! Interesting to note i didnt see any of the tranmere directors at all and i was hoping to have a word with Les at some point but the Tranmere players didnt come up afterwards. Spoke To John Welsh before the game to see what he thought and he said we were confident of going for the win which was encouraging to hear.
The game itself was fairly good i honestly thought there would be goals and it certainly wasnt a 0-0 game, There keep Smith was utter rubbish all night untill the last kick off the game where he pulls off a great save! First half i'd like to think we shaded it we actually played some nice football was encouraging to see that we wanted to get it down and look to play, Dont know what the hell Joss was thinking when he decided to dribble the ball back into our area and then trip timlin to give away a penalty! Thankfully Warner was equal to Austins penalty otherwise the scoreline would have looked a lot different,Thought we were unlucky not to get a penalty when Enoch went down.
Second half Swindon outplayed us, Think we settled for the draw with about 15 minutes to go so cant complain to much with that. Luckily for us Austin wasnt on form as with the missed penalty he nearly won the game for them with Drogba esque bit of skill and shot which hit the underside of the bar and went out!
Tranmere Players,
Warner - Solid Keeper, flapped at a corner but after that decided to punch clear corners and crosses, Thought he had a good game.
Kay Mcrystal Wood Cresswell all played very well i thought, Cresswell got beat a couple of times in the first half and he strikes me as more of a midfielder than a left back, Wood and Mcchrystal looked very solid at centre back and dealt superbly with Austin, They headed balls clear and picked passed well enough. Kay looks a good player he had a solid game, Not sure if it was him or creswell in the second half who kept getting done by the fast winger they brought on but i actually thought on the whole the back 4 did well - Clean sheet away from home superb
Welsh - worked tirelessly was really impressed with his work ethic he had a couple of good long range efforts passed the ball well and battled hard
Labadie - with the exception of the moment of madness with the penalty he played well linked the midfield and defence and the attack well, great bit of business getting him in!
Taylor - Again a solid performace came back and helped the defence out when needed solid performance without being spectacular
Jennings - Greedy, This isnt a dig but he has to pass the ball more, he has certainly got some talent dont get me wrong but a couple of times he took players on which is great and we dont see enough of it from players these days but he had the opportunity to pass and he wanted to go alone. Certainly a good prospect and i think he will go places
Showunmi - Swindon fans were really impressed by him as was i, He looked good yesterday held the ball up took players on didnt really have any chances though which was a bit dissapointing
Elford Alliyu - He put in a very good shift yesterday was impressed with him. Worked tirelessly and he was "busy" always looking to take people on linked up well with enoch, would have been nice to see him and jennings switch sides though throught the game think that would have been effective!
All in All a good performance away from home, Think we will be safe as long as we stay injury free