MANAGER Les Parry hopes he will be able to inject some extra experience into Tranmere’s youthful ranks for the encounter with Charlton Athletic this weekend.
Midfielders Paul McLaren and John Welsh, together with the young striker Adam McGurk are rated as possibles for the encounter with the Londoners at Prenton Park on Saturday.
Parry said: “I’m not expecting to have all three back but fingers crossed, we could have one or two of them in the running and that would be a major boost for us.”
Parry admits the injuries that took out three of his first choice midfielders - McLaren, Welsh and Joss Labadie - at the same time left his side short of experience in the League One games against Peterborough and Yeovil.
A youthful line-up delivered a high energy performance to post Tranmere’s first win of the league campaign at the expense of the Posh but that performance level dipped significantly in a 3-1 defeat at Yeovil last Saturday.
Such inconsistency can only be expected, Parry concedes, when the team features half a dozen or more players aged 20 or under.
Parry said: “Consistency is a problem when there are a lot of young players in the side.
“What happens with young players is they are less able to cope with mistakes.
“Older players cope with it better because they have made mistakes throughout their careers and know how to deal with it.
“When young players make a mistake they tend to dig themselves a little bit of a hole and find it difficult to get out of it.
“They can’t put it to the back of their mind.”
Parry added: “We’ve got to put the Yeovil game behind us.
“There is nothing we can do about it now except to make sure it does not happen again.
“Losing away from home for the first time this season was a setback.”
The result dropped Tranmere into a bottom four place in the table.
Parry said: “I’m not looking closely because it is so early in the season.
“The interesting thing about the table is how teams are packed tightly together, right the way through the division.
“No-one has pulled away at the top. Sheffield Wednesday looked like they were going to do it, then they picked up a couple of defeats.
“So it is very tight.
“One win at this stage will lift a team a lot of places.”
Meanwhile AccringtonŠStanleyŠare to contest FA charges relating to midfielder Ray Putterill playing in a Johnstone’s Paint Trophy game against Tranmere while serving a suspension.
Both theŠnpower League Two club and the 21-year-old player were charged after Putterill scored in the first round tie at Prenton Park on August 31 – just 24 hours after he was due to start a 42-day ban for swearing at a referee in a Liverpool County Premier League match for Halewood last season.
Accrington Stanley and Putterill insist they were unaware of the suspension and both have now requested personal hearings to protest their innocence.
