Manager Micky Mellon has challenged his players to maintain the standards that they set in Wednesday night’s cup clash as they prepare to take on Colchester United at Prenton Park on Saturday.
“The players are obviously buoyed by Wednesday but what we need to do now is take the energy from that and the standards from that and find the consistency, that’s the next stage for these young players now.
“I said to the players that they’ve been outed now. Everybody knows what you’re capable of and you need to hit the same intensity again. They can live with that intensity for the whole game because they did it on Wednesday and finished the game very strongly. If we hit those intensities, we should be performing all or most of the time.
“We have to be fair on the players and I’d never ask them to do things that I know they’re not capable of doing. We now have a level that we can measure against and we’ll remind the players of that.
“If you want to improve and keep getting better then the bar has to keep being raised. They’ve raised the bar now and expectations will be on them from both myself and the supporters to keep hitting those levels.”
With just a two full day turnaround between games, Rovers will have to prepare right to go again on Saturday afternoon.
“As soon as the last game finishes you’re working on recovering the players for the next game whilst also trying to work the workload without making them tired again before the next game as well as getting the Colchester information into them.
“The players learn how to deal with it better as they get more experienced and learn how to look after themselves to be ready for the next one, both mentally and physically.”
Colchester are the visitors to the Wirral this week and will provide Tranmere with different challenges once again in another tough League Two encounter.
“The Colchester game won’t be the same as the Newcastle game that’s for sure, there will be different things that we have to be good at. Every game in this league is different and every game is difficult because there are a lot of experienced teams and managers. We’ll aim to be at our best as we always do to give us the best opportunity of winning the game.”
Micky’s full interview can be watch on YouTube by clicking here!