IN BARELY 18 months as a professional footballer, Terry Gornell has worked under four different managers and might be meeting a fifth in the near future.

No wonder the young Tranmere striker describes the start of his career in the game as “an education.”

The 19-year-old from Liverpool says: “It is all part of a learning process and I have done a lot of learning over the last year and a half. Hopefully it is going to stand me in good stead.”

When Gornell graduated through Rovers’ youth development system to earn a first professional contract in the summer of 2008, the club was enjoying a period of relative stability on the playing side.

Manager Ronnie Moore decided to send the youngster out on loan to gain some first-team experience with League Two club Accrington Stanley.

Gornell played 11 games for the Lancashire club under the manager John Coleman, scoring a couple of goals.

Accrington would have liked to extend the loan beyond the initial two months but Moore decided Gornell was needed back at Prenton Park and he would go on to make close to a dozen first-team appearances for Rovers before the season was out.

Moore’s surprise departure this summer and the arrival of John Barnes as his replacement did not disrupt Gornell’s progress in picking up more first-team experience in the early weeks of the new campaign.

Poor results and supporter dissatisfaction led to Barnes’ dismissal 11 games into the League One campaign but Gornell found a place in the side that was given a tactical overhaul by caretaker manager Les Parry just under a month ago.

Gornell says: “I have seen a lot of changes in a short time. Everything was new to me at the start of last season because it was my first as a professional. This year everything is new to me again, because there have been so many changes.

“New managers come in and change the style of the team. Every manager I have worked under has been very different. They all have different opinions on players, different opinions on styles of play, different ideas about training.”

Gornell’s attacking role in the 4-3-3 formation introduced by Parry and coaches Shaun Garnett and Wayne Allison calls for a good deal of defensive work.

He started in the games against Stockport, Brighton and Hartlepool, then had to settle for a 30 minute substitute appearance in the 4-1 defeat to Swindon last weekend, when Michael Ricketts led the attack.

Gornell said: “There’s a lot of defensive work for the front players in the system Les has got us playing. We knew that from the first day.

“I think it is working quite well. We only conceded three goals in the first three games under Les – and two of them were penalties.

“The strikers have been the first line of defence in stopping the opposition from playing. We’ve been told to work hard and keep the side compact.

“It does take a bit of the attacking element away from us. But defence had to be the first priority when you look at the number of goals we will leaking in the first two months of the season.

“We still had chances in the four games under Les and we got to try and make the most of them.”