Just over a month ago the feeling around Prenton Park was a lot different to how it is now. Tranmere Rovers had lost at home to a Bradford side that came to the Wirral and firmly played Micky Mellon’s team off the park.
The loss meant that Rovers had won just two of their opening eight games in League Two to start the season.
Former Rovers striker Andy Cook scored both goals in a game that finished 2-1 to Mark Hughes’ Bantams. In reality, the visitors could have scored four or five that day. Rovers had their back five exposed time and time again by Bradford, with the away side having 13 shots on goal against Tranmere that night.
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The Bradford result shocked a change into the team at Prenton Park. It was the moment that everyone knew something needed to be tweaked at the back. Next up for Rovers after Bradford was a trip to Salford. Tranmere went into the game having won just two away games in 2022.
Expectations were low but the Peninsula Stadium has been a place that Rovers have found success at in recent years. Mellon pulled the rug out from everyone in the stadium when Tranmere played against Salford.
The team warmed up showing that they would be playing in a back five once again with Josh Dacres-Cogley and Ethan Bristow both taking turns to warm up with the team as part of that defensive formation before kick-off.
Neither of them ended up playing centre of a back five. Instead, Rovers reverted to a traditional back four – a formation that manager Mellon has seen a lot of success with previously. It was the same shape that Rovers used during their incredible run in the middle part of last season.
The back four had Jordan Turnbull and Dynel Simeu at the heart of it. The two summer signings had played together in Bradford game but they both looked a different level of resolute against Turnbull’s former team Salford.
Tranmere beat Gary Neville’s pet project 1-0. Josh Hawkes scored the only goal of the game but the goal was not the most impressive part of the performance. The changed defence did not allow a single shot on target against Ross Doohan in the Rovers goal.
Rovers hadn’t won back-to-back away games since December 2021 when they travelled to Walsall the weekend after the Salford win. They came up against former captain and centre-half Peter Clarke, who played in a Walsall side that mirrored Rovers’ shape and style.
Once again the defence stood strong. A clean sheet was held without incident. Walsall never looked like scoring and Rovers looked like a team transformed with the solidarity that the back four had provided them in the midlands.
Elliott Nevitt secured all three points in Walsall with an injury time winner as he pounced on a Kieron Morris shot that had been parried up into the sky.
Rovers felt the pressure starting to build as they came home to Prenton Park to take on Barrow. Another narrow 1-0 win was another feather in the cap of the fantastic efforts of the rejuvenated defensive unit.
Josh Hawkes scored the winner against the Cumbrian side and despite the nerves around an expectant Prenton Park, the team never looked like conceding.
Sutton were seen off in an even more impressive display. United were disjointed throughout with team changes and early substitutions opening up the door for Rovers to blow them away.
The standout star of the back four has undoubtedly been Simeu. The Cameroon-born English centre-back has already endeared himself massively to the Tranmere Rovers fanbase with his playing style and overall personality on and off the pitch. Fans have already begun to plead with the defender for him to stay at the club beyond his loan spell that ends at the conclusion of the season.
Simeu scored his first goal in Tranmere colours in the 3-0 domination of Crewe last Friday. The latest in what is becoming a fantastic run in the league. Simeu should have scored his first against Barrow in the previous outing at Prenton Park. A couple of Rhys Hughes deliveries were nodded goalward by the defender but both were miraculously saved by Barrow shot-stopper Paul Farman.
Calling Simeu the star is not to take away from the other three players in that back four, which has been the star itself. Turnbull alongside Simeu has been near flawless since coming into the team and finding his fitness. Josh Dacres-Cogley and Ethan Bristow have consistently terrorised defences with their pacey overlapping style of play.
Bristow is one of the fastest players you are likely to find in League Two. The left-sided fullback shows time and time again that he can give a player a yard or five and still beat them to the ball.
Cogley’s qualities are well-known in the Rovers fandom with the right-back one of the fan favourites at Prenton Park. He’s developed his game even further this season as he has started to adopt more of a leadership role in the group. He’s even captained the side on occasion when Kane Hemmings has been absent.
Rovers now find themselves on the cusp of the playoff places in League Two. They face the seemingly impossible as they travel to Harrogate this Saturday. Micky Mellon’s team are in search of a sixth-consecutive win in the League.
The current comes despite the fact that the team are actually battling an injury crisis. Not that you could tell with the way that a consistent starting 11 has been used in the league. Charlie Jolley, Joel Mumbongo, Tom Davies, Paul Lewis, Paul Glatzel and Luke Robinson are all members of the squad who could be battling for a place in the first team. They are all out injured.
Harrogate sit 20 th in the League heading into the game so there may never be a better opportunity for Tranmere to notch their sixth league win and fourth away from home in a row. The last time the team won four games in a row on the road was at the tail end of the 2020/21 season.
If Rovers can continue this run, they’ll be hoping to better last season’s 9 th -placed finish in League Two and make their way into the playoffs come May.
