Tranmere Rovers manager Keith Hill is confident that his side can build on Tuesday’s Papa John’s Trophy semi-final win at Oxford United, when Oldham Athletic visit Prenton Park in Sky Bet League Two this Saturday.
Fresh from setting up a Final meeting with Sunderland at Wembley on Sunday 14th March, Rovers return to fourth tier action against Harry Kewell’s Latics.
TRFC are currently sixth in the division, but three points over Oldham will take them level with the top three.
And Hill wants his men to continue their momentum but is wary of the threat that Oldham will pose.
Hill said: “The confidence is high, and with respect to myself, I don’t try to bring any negativity to the training ground. We want to be focused and build on what we are good at, and obviously we’re mindful of the opponents.
“The process that we’re trying to do and go through, performance wise, and it is all interlinked, the performances and the great results that we have had.
“It breeds good competition for places, especially when you are winning matches in the league and in the Papa John’s Trophy.
“You want everybody to tag along with the ethics and the dynamics. We’ve got 20 games to play and we want everybody to be on board and to be working as hard as they can.
“Performances are key to results, and the performance levels and the first requirement on any team sheet is effort, skill, playing on the front foot and taking the game to the opponents and being brave.
“We’ve got it out on the training pitch, and we have got it in the squad. We are confident with the players that we have got going into the last 19 league games of the season plus the Wembley Final.
“The amount of games that football clubs are playing this season with the squad limits and restrictions, there’s no question, whether it’s Tranmere or Oldham, every team up and down the leagues, because we’ve had the Saturday-Tuesday, Saturday-Tuesday, COVID testing and injuries, there’s going to be inconsistencies.
“The league is very tight, and we won’t underestimate anyone. Oldham are very attack minded, they score a lot of goals and we managed to win 1-0 at their place back in early December, and I thought we were excellent that night and well-disciplined defensively, and we’ll have to do that again because they are very dangerous.
“We have got to be respectful, but we’ve got to play our style of football and the way that we want to play.
“For me it’s about the values and the principles of the way that we want to play.”