Tranmere Rovers midfielder Luke McCullough believes Rovers need to be more solid away from home after the 3-2 away defeat against Crewe Alexandra.
In an action packed game at The Alexandra Stadium a Paul Mullin strike late into the second half provided some hope for TRFC to rescue a point, but the hosts held on for victory.
Speaking to the media after the game, McCullough said: “We can’t give ourselves a mountain to climb away from home. It’s always going to be difficult to try and comeback and score at least three goals to get anything from the game away from home, so we need to be better and more solid away from home.
“We didn’t start the game great, we just played in spells during the game and we didn’t have any control I thought during the game. We were saying before the game we wanted to start well but for whatever reason we just didn’t manage to do it.
The man from Northern Ireland was impressed with The Railwaymen’s formation which he believes they utilised well during the match but believes Rovers could have took advantage if they played at a higher level.
“I think they used the formation well and the centre halves stepped in and they just used the spare man quite well and we struggled to deal with it. We changed the formation a little bit and got back into it a little bit more but we just didn’t stay at it the whole game for whatever reason. We will have to go back and look at in on Monday.
“If you do win the ball back they were playing so expansive so there would have been a lot of space, but we didn’t do it well enough and pick the right pass when we did win it back enough I thought.”
Rovers’ loan recruit also feels TRFC need to start replicating the defensive solidity that is so often apparent at Prenton Park on the road.
“Our clean sheet record at home is very good; I think it’s the second best in the league or something like that. At home we seem to be a lot more solid for whatever reason, we need to look at doing that away from home and keep more clean sheets away from home.
“We were chasing it at the end and putting pressure on trying to grab the equaliser obviously, but it just didn’t manage to come off; it was just one of them days for sure.”
By Joe Sargent