THE GAME
For the second week running Rovers conceded four goals in a home match and suffered a third consecutive defeat in the league.
Darrell Clarke made two changes to his starting lineup as Luke Southwood, back from international duty, returned in goal for Brad Young and Kamil Conteh came in for Clinton Mola.
It’s really difficult to be positive about this one, as Tranmere are quite an average League Two side and nowhere near as good as MK Dons who comfortably beat Rovers seven days earlier.
The visitors started strongly, and Joe Ironside was denied a goal due to Macauley Southam-Hales’ block. Ellis Harrison was forced off on 24 minutes, through injury, and we all knew it was going to be a struggle to find a goal or three after that!
And so it proved; Tranmere waited until the 33rd minute before opening their account when Omari Patrick crossed into the box where Nathan Smith glanced a header into the corner of the net to register his third goal of the season.
Fabrizio Cavegn blazed a shot high over the bar but, in all honesty, Clarke’s side did little to trouble their visitors in the opening period.
Six minutes into the second half Tranmere doubled their lead when Connor Jennings headed over Luke Southwood, who had advanced off his line, and into an empty net.
Jennings added his, and his side’s third goal, poncing on the loose ball after Southwood had parried a shot from Patrick, and calmly slotted home.
Goal number four saw Josh Davison net from close range while Rovers managed a consolation goal from Alfie Chang, his first for the club.
It wasn’t pretty and Clarke has a lot to do to lift his side out of their current run of results, hopefully beginning at Crawley next week!
‘I’m angry. I’m very angry. I’ll say to my players that they represent me and that represents nothing of what I’m about. Okay. I’ll take accountability for it; it’s my team. My set of players. That’s two home games, eight goals conceded, and it won’t be acceptable. It’s as simple as that. I’ll see them in the morning. I’ll see you at nine o’clock in the morning because what I won’t accept is lack of desire, accountability, resilience, and not running hard. The basics of the game not being adhered to. We lost so many duels out there; they ran through us. We were miles off it, so if they don’t want to work today, they work tomorrow.
‘Until I get the response that I need, there have been times in my career that I’ve had to do this, then that’s the way it will be. We talk formations, we can talk personnel, we can talk all about those, but if you’re not doing the basics of the game right, working hard, running hard, and they’ve ruined my fans’ weekend, so I’m going to ruin theirs. I’ll see them in the morning.
‘I’ve got nothing else to say, to be honest. We all owe them an apology, an apology to the fans. I’d like to think they know what I’m about. So, it has to be addressed. You know, the one last week can be called a bit of a one off, two of them, it can’t be. Miles off it, and the worst thing is, I didn’t see it coming.
‘Training has been really bright, bubbly, really good, intense week. But you’ve got to produce on a Saturday. If you don’t want to produce on a Saturday, when we’re getting the backing, we’re getting the crowd’s support, and if you don’t want to do that, fine, see you Sunday morning until you do. And we’ve got to learn. We’ve got to learn from that.’ Rovers Head Coach Darrell Clarke
‘It was embarrassing and disappointing. It’s hard to put into words, really, but we’ve got to regroup and go again and put it right next week. We were miles off it. I’m not going to beat around the bush. We have to stick together, get through this patch, and try again to put it right.
‘We went eight unbeaten and no bad team does that. We’ve got to regroup and get together and put things right. The only way to do that is by working hard and getting on the training ground. You get a chance next week to rewrite it and start another run. We only do that by sticking together, getting amongst it at the training ground and really putting in the work.
‘We know it’s on ourselves. We’ve got to give our fans something to get behind and stick with us, but we can’t thank them enough for today.’ Rovers defender Macauley Southam-Hales
‘Connor Jennings is a legend at Tranmere and you can see why. It was an important goal at the start of the second half and then another one from a tight angle, but his overall performance was brilliant and he enjoyed the rewards. For any person who plays up top, they obviously want to score, and he’s probably been a little bit frustrated because he hasn’t had many opportunities.
“But what I do know from Connor Jennings is that whenever he comes in to represent the football club at the training ground or on the pitch, he gives it absolutely everything. His love of football, his love of this football club are immense and today there was a brilliant individual performance from Connor.
‘It was great response to an extremely disappointing performance last week. Lots of words have been spoken, but we spoke well over the last couple of days about actions – not words – and the performance was a really good performance today against a good team. This was more like it. We were calmer with the ball, good on transition and we defended well against an opponent who obviously have a lot of flexibility.’ Tranmere manager Andy Crosby
