Official Tranmere thread: Discuss it here.

[London Calling]

Nationwide Football League Division Two table
Wed Mar 10

_ _ P GD PTS
1 Plymouth 35 39 70
2 Bristol City 35 21 65
3 QPR 34 27 63
4 Swindon Town 34 16 60
5 Brighton 35 15 56
6 Hartlepool 34 12 53
7 Luton Town 33 8 53
8 Bournemouth 34 6 52
9 Port Vale 34 6 51
10 Wrexham 34 2 51
11 Barnsley 35 -1 49
12 Sheff Wed 35 -6 45
13 Rushden 35 -1 44
14 Blackpool 34 -6 44
15 Colchester 33 -9 44
16 Tranmere 34 -10 41
17 Grimsby Town 35 -19 39
18 Oldham 34 -1 38
19 Chesterfield 34 -17 37
20 Peterborough 35 -8 36
21 Notts County 35 -17 35
22 Brentford 35 -20 34
23 Stockport 35 -15 32
24 Wycombe 35 -22 25

 

[Rougvie]

Just back from Dublin and met an albion LEGEND on the way full story tomorrow.

Well done the lads !!

 

[the right footed denilson]

the lack of football chat on here pisses me off

ok, falmer is important, but f*** me, people have forgotten the main reason we are here! lets have a bit more enthusiasm on the football front aye??

 

[Braders]

hi just got back

great first half , well taken goals and a cracker by leon

not so good second half

5 consecutive home wins

WE ARE GOING UP

 

[CP 0 3 BHA]

hi just got back

great first half , well taken goals and a cracker by leon

not so good second half

5 consecutive home wins

WE ARE GOING UP

Gawd 'elp us if we do!

 

[Spicy]

hi just got back

great first half , well taken goals and a cracker by leon

not so good second half

5 consecutive home wins

WE ARE GOING UP

Had to go out tonight and couldn't believe we were 3-0 up when I came home. Brilliant result. Lets be having more of them.

 

[Virgo's Haircut]

Braders has said it all really.

Dan Harding was official Man of the Match

The Tranmere keeper had a total mare

 

[London Irish]

Another excellent home performance. 10pts from 4 games since that bad week in Feb.

No doubt we'll hear all the bollocks about FA Cup distractions but Tranmere played the ball around well and had a few good early chances.

They had to be put away by some killer football by us and that's what we served up in the first half.

Leon should have got the first goal but their keeper did well. Fantastic stuff from Ben Roberts to get a touch when their player was clean through seconds later. Then more heroics with the clearance off the line (from Dan?)

The opening goal was brilliant quick thinking by Chippy and our new goal machine OGH. More brilliant thinking from Chippy to give the free kick to Leon, who was desperate to prove something today. Although it will go down as a mistake by their FA Cup hero goalie, the ball bounced wickedly right in that place keepers hate. Poachers instinct from Trev to put the chance away.

The third was a lovely moment from Leon. Ironically he had a chance to lob the keeper early on but slightly bottled it, but the third goal was worth the admission money alone.

Our job in the second half was to kill the game off rather then play Harlem Globetrotters and we did that well too. The Jonsey cross for Leon volley against the post, wow, if that had gone in, would Bobby have a better Withdean goal than that?

Would obviously liked to have seen Piercy on for a bit longer, but McGhee clearly sees him and Harty fighting for the same place at the moment and OGH had a fine game. So did Jonsey, great comeback from last week. In fact, go round the entire team, no weak link at all, everyone near the top of their game.

I wouldn't argue with Harding as MOTM but I would have gone for Chippy, who did the key things that won us the game.

The 2nd half bookings were unfortunate, although the ref was a total flake, Danny shouldn't have done that. Couldn't see whether there was contact with Jonsey, but annoying given his disciplinary problems.

As interesting as the match itself was McGhee's programme notes, a praiseworthy attempt to try and educate a few people about the basics of football.

It must be annoying for the players to see them not get the credit for the hard work of fifth place this season.

McGhee is building a team that is defensively very strong and looks to play very direct football when in possession. I won't always looks that pretty, because I think McGhee has correctly ascertained that the strength of his squad is not its ability to keep the ball for long periods and play patient football. Instead, it is an ability to break down the patterns of other teams and then launch swift, direct attacks on goal which put a premium on our forward line being the hardest workers in the team.

That is McGhee's "style" with this particular squad of players and who can argue with the results?

You could see the contrast clearly with Tranmere tonight. Their players generally looked more confortable on the ball and they passed better than us and spread the ball more intelligently from flank to flank than we were able to. But what good did it do them? Nothing - because the minute they entered the danger area of the pitch our defensive organisation was able to kill their pretty patterns stone dead. Meanwhile, we played the ball more directly and fashioned the better goal-scoring chances.

McGhee clearly is motivating the players well and all this feverish talk about a rift between him and Leon has proved to be hot air we suspected it to be. Leon today was not quite at his best, but maybe 90% from this difficult, gifted player is a good return. He certainly could have had a hat-trick today.

For me the player who is making everything click (apart from Chippy) is Trev. He has made the big difference in the last couple of months. He has given us that little more class and direct threat that McPhee for all his promise cannot give us.

So the only real downer for me tonight was the presence of Adams. It will be cruel for us if those fuckwits in Spain now disrupt our team at this crucial play-off run-in time.

Otherwise we are sitting pretty and even a point for us at Vale would be good enough.

Great stuff from the lads tonight and McGhee. Well done all.

 

[El Presidente]

Realistically it looks like perming 2 from 7 for the remaining play off places assuming that QPR and Swindon do not screw up.

Well done the players, lets get totally behind them on Saturday at Port Vale

 

[timbha]

slightly off topic but towards the end of the match Jones dummied a free kick near corner flag (Tranmere end), Tranmere player runs to the ball, referee cautions him and moves ball 10 yards across the pitch.

Is the rule to move the ball 10 yards forward or 10 yards nearer the goal??

 

[Cheshire]

London Irish - Thanks for taking the trouble of doing a report on the match - much appreciated.

 

[chips and gravy]

slightly off topic but towards the end of the match Jones dummied a free kick near corner flag (Tranmere end), Tranmere player runs to the ball, referee cautions him and moves ball 10 yards across the pitch.

Is the rule to move the ball 10 yards forward or 10 yards nearer the goal??

10 yards nearer to the goal. I thought Oatway had an outstanding game tonight. Back to his best with his tigerish tackles.

El Abd looked assured when he came on too. All these players now starting to come through from the youth team is excellent news.

A very assured performance - can we hope for 4 points from the next two away games? That would really set us up.

Only 9 away from the auto spot. I know it's a long shot but could it be done? On this form anything is possible

 

[itszamora]

Great performance, and great fun baiting Brian Little in E/F blocks. However I feel automatic promotion is beyond us, we still haven't won away from home for a while

 

[Turkey]

the lack of football chat on here pisses me off

ok, falmer is important, but f*** me, people have forgotten the main reason we are here! lets have a bit more enthusiasm on the football front aye??

Apologies for attending the match

 

[Kenhead]

Great first half, knights goal was brilliant, we need to pick up atleast 2-4 points on our next 2 away games

 

[Beach Hut]

Tranmere had a cup hangover but what the hell we took advantage.

Must secure an away win sooner rather than later - if we get a couple of those we should make the play-offs.

 

[Dancin Ninja BHA]

not so good second half

Not quite.......great volley by Knight that came off the post, and Knight's free header from good cross by Trevor (who was definately "upforit" tonight, maybe because Micky Adams was in attendance ), second half wasn't too bad

A word on the ref, shocking, for both sides

 

[Eddie the Seagull]

Knights goal was a peach.

I knew it was in the moment the ball left his boot & it seemed to take an age to float in which gave me a proverbial 10 mins to enjoy a certain goal - like a scene from 'When Saturday comes' etc. Marvellous.

Froze my 'nads off though.

 

[Soton Seagull]

Excellent goals. Leon could have eclipsed the beauty of his 1st half effort if the volley had just sneaked inside the post. Shame.

Great commitment. I thought Harding was superb, although they all pretty much played well. Big Trev was good 1st half but then lost it a bit in the 2nd half, hopefully it was deliberate so that Mickey won't call him back!

Sorry to sound cynical, but having looked at the league table, teams have games inhand etc. Unless we pick up points away from home, these Withdean wins will count for very little come May. If we do not win against Vale (I'd accept a draw happily in that one) or Cheaterfield (must win), then the away confidence is going to be totalkly shattered.

I have absolutley no doubt that we are easily capable of getting to Cardiff, I just feel that the results in the next 7 days will tell us a little more about the true aspirations and potential of the 03/04 BHA squad.

It's never boring (well apart from Brentford last week!)

 

[Yorkie]

I think both halves were good. Obviously the first half was more exciting with the goals. Leon's goal has to be a contender for goal of the season.

The second half was good consolidation. We fought well, kept possession and defended exceptionally. We did still have shots on goal but just because it wasn't as exciting didn't make it any less skilfull.

Millwall couldn't break this team on Sunday. I watched Bradford beat Rotherham last Saturday. If we get in the playoffs we could manage against teams like these with a couple of good loans or even signings.

Let's still look towards promotion via the playoffs and not write off a team that has had so many changes. We are beginning to put some together that is solid and reliable.

I actually fancy us to get a result at Vale & at Chesterfield.