Tranmere Rovers manager Micky Mellon feels there was an improvement in the second-half display despite his side suffering a 3-0 home defeat to Hull City in the Carabao Cup first-round on Tuesday night.
Early goals in the opening six minutes from Jon Toral and David Milinkovic set Grant McCann’s Tigers on their way, with Ryan Tafazolli’s header on the stroke of half-time completing the scoring.
Rovers responded well after the break and had their chances to get back into the tie, with Corey Blackett-Taylor, Kieron Morris and Connor Jennings all going close for Mellon’s men.
And the boss was encouraged by the signs of improvement after a slow start.
Mellon said: “You have seen what an attacking threat we can be going forward as we have some talented lads and we have talented lads still to come back into the group and we showed that in the second-half.
“We just didn’t start the game at all well and at the minute we have just have to fight harder for the nil. We’ve come up against some good quality and in fairness I want to keep working hard defensively in order to try and keep that nil for longer and give ourselves a chance.
“We have the quality to go and cause Championship teams, problems but you have to go and get the nil as we have conceded too many goals from set-plays, so we have to work hard and try and get better at that.
“I’m disappointed that we started the game the way we did and that we didn’t make it a contest in the first-half for the fans and ourselves as we wanted a lift and something to build on but we said at half-time, we wanted a clean-sheet in the second-half and wanted to get the next goal.
“We did to be fair, we showed a lot of intensity going forward and defending situations with turnovers, and we did that much better.
“We showed what our attacking players can do to teams and came out in the second-half and put them under a lot more pressure.”
Micky’s post-match interview is available on iFollow now. CLICK HERE to watch.