Defensive mistakes will be stopped, says Rovers boss

Nov 29 2011 by Nick Hilton, Liverpool Daily Post

MANAGER Les Parry aims to find a remedy on the training ground for the costly slump in Tranmere’s results over the last month.

Parry suspects Rovers moved away from playing to their strengths during a six game sequence in which they took one point from four league outings and went out of two cup competitions.

He wants to dedicate a two-week break from competitive action to the job of readjusting Tranmere’s pattern of play, so they can find the balance that brought them success during the early months of the season.

An idea to arrange a friendly match to fill the coming weekend’s free Saturday has been abandoned, in favour of a day’s work on the training pitch.

Parry said: “I think the break is coming at a good time for us. I am happy that we have time to look at what we need to do and get some work done.”

Last Saturday’s 3-0 defeat at Exeter City saw Tranmere drop down to 12th place in the table – five points adrift of the play-off zone.

Parry said: “I think we have lost something we had as a team a few weeks ago. We’ve started getting away from the things that got us into a decent position in the first place.”

Parry reckons the difficulties Tranmere are experiencing now may have their root in the period of positive form that pushed them to the edge of the top six towards the end of October.

“We were doing particularly well,” Parry said. “We were beaten on one or two occasions but there were very few games in which we did not play well. Because of that, we started to alter the way we played a little bit. We started getting away from the hard work and stopping the opposition from playing.

“We started to try and play a little bit more from the back. We’ve been losing possession a lot, which isn’t our game.

“That’s for us to notice and for us to put right. I just had a feeling at Exeter that what we were trying to do was quite a long way from what we are as a team and what people expect us to be.

“Because we were playing Exeter, I don’t know whether the lads thought they could play a little bit more football and get away with it, whereas when we played Sheffield Wednesday the previous week, we did fight hard and we did work hard.”

Parry added: “We (the coaching staff) are going to tell the lads what we think and listen to what they think. Then we will put a plan into place over the next week, concentrate on the things we need to work on and get back to doing what we were doing before.”

Part of the process will be to keep the mood of the players positive. Tranmere went through a similar rough patch last season – a seven-game run without a win during February and March that included five defeats. They pulled out of the slump to finish nine points clear of the relegation places.

“Lifting the mood is predominantly my job,” Parry said. “I have to lift the staff so they can lift the players. It is me that sets down what we do, so we have to be careful the lads don’t see it as a punishment – because I don’t believe in that.

“So I have to lift myself. I was particularly disappointed after Saturday and all day Sunday so it’s going to be a little bit more difficult this week than in the past.”

Parry reported that Martin Devaney (groin) Mustafa Tiryaki (shin) and Andy Robinson (hamstring) have slight injury concerns following the Exeter game but he is hopeful all three will be in contention to face MK Dons.

“The performance at Exeter was below par,” Parry admitted. “I don’t think anyone could say we deserved to go in 1-0 down at half-time but we capitulated after the second goal. We were giving the ball away too much. You don’t get beaten 3-0 and deserve something out of the game.”