Top travellers – but Tranmere Rovers find frustrated home front

Oct 15 2007 by Nick Hilton, Liverpool Daily Post

PRENTON PARK may be home, but for the moment it is not at the heart of Tranmere’s promotion challenge.

A third home draw in succession was just enough to keep Ronnie Moore’s team at the top of the League One table on Friday and Saturday until Swansea’s win yesterday.

The driving force of the campaign so far, however, is the impressive away form, yielding three wins and two draws in five games.

Travelling supporters can testify how well Rovers played at places like Gillingham, Carlisle and Southend. Victories and compelling performances are proving harder to come by in front of home fans, some of whom let their frustration show on Friday night.

Manager Moore was more disappointed by the negative crowd reaction at the end of Rovers’ goalless stalemate with Walsall than the performance of his team.

Moore acknowledges Tranmere are finding it difficult to overcome opponents who set out to frustrate them at Prenton Park.

Few have done it more effectively than Walsall, who became the first team to prevent Rovers scoring a league goal this season.

However, Moore believes the booing that followed the final whistle on Friday night was unwarranted, given the determined efforts of his players to break down the Saddlers’ suffocating 4-5-1 system.

“The disappointing thing for me was being booed off when we are on top of a league,” Moore said. “I found that astounding. It was a tight game. Walsall came here on the back of three wins and played 4-5-1 and made it very hard for us to break them down.

“I want the team and the crowd to work together but the lads were gutted in the dressing-room because they were booed at the end.

“I told them to lift their heads. It is human nature now. Everyone wants to win – and you can’t always win.

Moore added: “No-one is more frustrated than me when we’ve only drawn at home in the last three games against teams we should be beating if we want to win promotion.

“But I’m not disappointed with the performance. I could not ask the players to give any more. We needed a break and we did not get one.

“We did not take the chances we had and there were not enough of them for a home game. When we got into the attacking third of the field the quality of our ball into the box wasn’t good enough.”

Tranmere knew exactly how their opponents were going to play. Walsall operate with five men across the midfield, home and away. Rovers used a variation on the system to positive effect in a 2-1 win at Southend the previous weekend.

Moore added: “When you are playing against a 4-5-1 system everyone has to be patient, and patience is not a quality you find a lot of in football these days.

“But there is a lot for us to be positive about. If someone had asked our supporters at the start of the season how they would feel about being top after 11 games, I think they would have been delighted.”

Leyton Orient missed the opportunity to regain pole position on Saturday by drawing 1-1 with Leeds, although the Londoners were pleased with the point they took from Elland Road with 10 men.

Ominously, pre-season favourites Nottingham Forest moved to within a point of Tranmere with a 3-0 win at Cheltenham.

Rovers hope leading scorer Chris Greenacre, missing from the last two games with blisters and blood poisoning, will be fit to return to action at Swindon next Saturday.

Calvin Zola, fit again after a two-month lay-off with a hamstring injury, returned to the side on Friday in a striking role alongside Gareth Taylor.

Meanwhile, Moore chose Carl Tremarco, a natural left-footed player, for the wide left midfield role and kept right-winger Mike Jones on the bench until 20 minutes from the end.

Moore admits left-winger Steve Davies, ruled out for the remainder of the season with cruciate ligament damage, won’t be an easy player to replace.

He said: “We don’t have an out and out left-winger now. To play with two wingers, we have to put Mike Jones on the right and switch Chris Shuker out to the left. But I think we take away from our strength by doing that.”