Tactical change pays off for Tranmere boss Micky Mellon

Posted Wednesday, October 03, 2018 by PA

Micky Mellon admitted that a half-time tactical switch was the driving force behind Tranmere’s 1-0 victory over Lincoln at Prenton Park.

The league leaders dominated the opening 45 minutes but Rovers’ James Norwood scored the only goal of the game on 62 minutes before seeing red for a second yellow card in injury time.

The introduction of Harvey Gilmour at half time and a switch to five in midfield swung the game in Tranmere’s favour, delighting Mellon.

He said: “It’s a massive win against the league leaders. We had to get a lot right to try and get the result.

“In the first half we maybe felt that we weren’t getting quite as close as we wanted to but all credit to the boys, we’ve come out second half and juggled it around a little bit and it’s worked really well for us.

“I’m really pleased in the end the get an important three points. It’s a great night for the club.

“They’ve got some big units and then they bring on players that just seemed to get bigger as they came off the bench. So all credit to the boys for continuing to do their jobs and getting us over the line.

“I don’t want to say too much about what we did (at half time) because the other manager is watching, but we knew that we had to change.”

Scott Davies produced a brilliant save from a John Akinde header early on before Shay McCarten went around the Rovers ‘keeper moments later only to see his shot cleared off the line by Luke McCullough.

But after the break it was the hosts who were in the ascendancy and just past the hour mark Tranmere were rewarded for their efforts when a flick over the top from Ollie Banks was met by Norwood who composed himself before rolling the ball past Josh Vickers into the net.

Imps boss Danny Cowley said: “I’m very disappointed considering that they only had one shot on goal. It’s a frustrating night for us but a lot of our players played really good tonight.

“We’ve dominated the game and at half time they’ve had to change to a 4-5-1. We’ve done a lot of things right, but in the second half, credit to them, because they’ve played better, but really disappointing that we’ve conceded to them with their only shot.

“We’ve played really well first half definitely, moved the ball really quickly. We had complete control in the game.

“The disappointing part was that we had so many free-kicks and set-pieces and they weren’t as good as we expect them to be in terms of the standards we expect of ourselves.

“We have to suck up the disappointment and learn from the game and go again on Saturday.”