Nigel Adkins says that there is belief growing amongst his team, as Tranmere Rovers head to Walsall on Saturday 16th December in good form.
Last weekend’s 2-1 win over Newport County made it five unbeaten in the league, as the squad look to climb up the table and away from the bottom two.
Rovers now get ready to travel to the Poundland Bescot Stadium for their final Saturday away trip of 2023.
ON COMING FROM BEHIND TO BEAT NEWPORT:
“It was very important; it was more than just the three points. It's just emphasised there's been a lot of work going on behind the scenes of the football club. There's a lot of belief growing amongst the players, staff and supporters now. When we scored the equaliser, we've got Connor Jennings picking the ball out of the net and Regan Henry running back saying, we can go and get another goal.”
ON A WIDER TEAM EFFORT:
“The team at the weekend won the game and did great, but it's the consistent message and standards of the players who are not in the team on how they behave around the players. Being supportive of them, how their standards are high on the training ground. Everybody's relentlessly working hard for each other, so you might not be in the team, but because of the way you perform in the training ground every day, you're helping drive the performance of the player who is in the team.
We've got a big run of fixtures coming up. I would suggest it'll be highly unlikely we pick the same team for every game, so it's everybody understanding the roles and responsibilities within the team setup that we've got so that when they're called upon, they can just fit in seamlessly. I've been really pleased with the attitude.”
ON IMPROVING AWAY FROM HOME:
“We're looking at performances, we could have quite easily won those two [Sutton and Mansfield] and the Stevenage game as well. We're moving in the right direction, which is an important message, and we're moving in the right direction on a consistent basis. Again, our focus is always the next game. Do everything we can to go and win the next game. Prepare as best as we can through the course of the week going into that game, and then learn the lessons from it.”
ON SATURDAY’S TRIP TO WALSALL:
“Mat [Sadler] has done really well. Another talented young coach in League Two. I've been very impressed with the coaches and the teams that we've played have a variety of ways of playing. At Walsall they mix it up very well, where they can play out from the back, and they can play direct. They're not one dimensional, so in that way it gives us challenges that we're well aware of.
“The supporters make an unbelievable amount of difference. You can see at home and away there’s a togetherness. The players know it's special to play for Tranmere Rovers. The players are aware of how hard they've got to work on the training ground every day. They know how hard I'm expecting them to work on a matchday to give everything we can to win a game of football.”
ON TEAM NEWS:
“We've had 30 players out on the grass training [on Thursday]. Great credit to the coaching staff and the players. Luke Norris is the only person who's not out there, he's recovering from his ankle surgery. I would suggest that Paul Lewis is not ready to be in contention just yet, same as Joe Starbuck, but it's nice to see that they've been back involved with the group.”
You can watch the manager’s full pre-match interview below.