Keith Hill delighted to see Tranmere return to winning ways before Wembley

Posted Wednesday, March 10, 2021 by PA

Tranmere boss Keith Hill was thrilled to see his side warm up for Wembley with a comfortable 2-0 win at second-bottom Southend.

Rovers take on Sunderland in the EFL Trophy final on Sunday and will head into the game on a high after easing to victory at Roots Hall.

Paul Lewis and George Ray struck inside the opening 24 minutes, keeping Rovers one point off the League Two automatic-promotion places.

Hill was thrilled Tranmere had responded to a shock 1-0 defeat to Crawley on Saturday.

“For them to bounce back after Saturday was great,” said Hill. “I’m not a bad manager because we lost one game and the players aren’t bad players because they lost one game.

“But it’s sensationalised on forums and on Twitter. This was a great performance and a great three points.

“If we had performed like that and been beaten I would still have gone home happy. But we haven’t been beaten because of the desire.

“I’m so pleased for the players and they shouldn’t be getting any stick when we get beaten occasionally.

“Of course this was an important game but in the grand scheme of things it was just another game really.

“We’ve won tonight and we’re at Wembley at the weekend so we won’t be playing when the other League Two sides are.

“But it’s going to be a special weekend when we’re representing Tranmere and the supporters “

Southend sit level on points with Barrow, who are just above the drop zone, but Mark Molesley’s side have now played three more games.

And Molesley knows his side are facing a real fight to stay up.

“This game was a dip and we can’t afford for that to happen again,” he said.

“We’ve got to dig deep and we’ve got to be better than we were tonight. But we can take heart from the fact we’ve got ourselves back in the fight before and we’ve got to go and do that again now.

“We were way short in that first half against quality opposition.

“We have to be competing better than that and we had been recently but that was a bad 45 minutes.

“Tranmere are probably the best side we have seen down here this season and our season won’t be defined by that one result.”