Living in North-West Wales it’s not too easy to get to many games, but each year I make the trip to Tranmere and return disheartened. Well, this year the opposite was true – we showed that, injuries and transfers permitting, we shall be there or thereabouts come May.
The first half was one of the most nailbiting I’ve seen in years, and it could easily have been 4-4 at half-time. Within the first 5 minutes we had to clear one off the line, but responded when Newman poked home a header well placed into his path by Gayle. Not surprisingly, Tranmere looked shaken and we looked uplifted, and one could sense that another goal might follow, as it did, Tabb bending home a fine free kick from 22 yards. However, after that Tranmere began to reassert themselves, with the lanky Zola and his side-kick Facey posing a lot of problems for our defence. Turner was having trouble coping with Zola’s physical presence (he looked a useful player, and it’s odd that he’s not been a regular for Tranmere) and Nelson wasn’t exactly dominating his area, though to be fair he pulled off one great save when tipping over a shot. With Tranmere hitting the outside of a post, the game felt far from over. A goal duly arrived from Zola, but we responded well, and from one ball forward their goalie was drawn into a clumsy late challenge on Lloyd. K O’C tucked away the resulting penalty, Tranmere’s (reserve) keeper obligingly diving out of the way. Nevertheless, Tranmere continued to threaten, with one shot thudding off the bar and back into play.
At half-time the fear had to be that we would sit on our lead and give Tranmere further chances. Well, that didn’t happen. We came out looking positive and passing the ball around. The defence got a tighter grip and it was no great surprise when an incisive move down our left, involving a series of quick passes, opened up the defence for Lloyd to flick home. One of the best goals I’ve seen at this level for ages (just seen the clip on TV, which missed out the build up and entirely failed to do it justice). After that we were never in trouble, and could have had more goals as first Lloyd and then Peters troubled the Tranmere defence with their pace.
All in all, a great win. Also a tale of two defences: one (ours) that looked dodgy for 45 minutes and one (theirs) that looked static for 90 minutes.
Got regular updates of dangerous and he said that it was just amazing... best performance ever and end to end stuff....
:bound: 
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