By Deadly Submarine
April 1 2006

One of the worst games of football witnessed this season and possibly for the last few seasons too saw Rovers and Hartlepool play out a dismal 0-0 draw. The game never sparked to life as both sides played in hangover mode showing little creativity or enthusiasm for the whole ninety minutes.

 

 

Attendance: 6,301

 

 

What to do on Valentines Night?  Spend it with the one you love either with a night in or a meal out or spend it outdoors watching your team play football on a cold damp evening?  Well for those of you who chose the first option and didn’t go to Prenton Park last night, I can only applaud your powers of decision making.

 

There can be no doubt that this was Rovers worst performance of the season and perhaps of the last few seasons but to entirely blame the hosts for the lack of entertainment would be harsh.  Both sides appeared to have spent Monday night and all day Tuesday out on the town and seemed as if they were suffering from some kind of hangover as the game began.

 

Brian Little once again re-shuffled his troops from the Gillingham game in favour of the 4-4-2 formation that began the win over Huddersfield ten days earlier.  Ian Goodison and the injured Jason McAteer were replaced in the starting line-up by wingers Sam Aiston and Carl Tremarco, meaning that for the second home game in a row, Gareth Roberts reverted to his more natural left-back role at Goodison’s expense.

 

The game was only a few minutes old but the signs were already there that entertainment was going to be at a minimum.  The visitors started as the brighter of the sides and had good possession of the ball but in spite of this it was Rovers who had the first glint of a chance when Chris Greenacre running onto one of many long balls forward but he failed to bring the ball under control.

 

Turnbull had two long-range chances for the visitors one of which went wide and another which was easily caught by Seremet whilst at the other end Delroy Facey saw his shot hit the roof of the net after he had spotted Konstantopoulos slightly off his line and tried his luck from distance.

 

The game was twenty minutes old before the first real goalscoring chance emerged and it fell to the home side when Carl Tremarco who had looked lively in the opening period, ran through on the left of the visitors penalty area and shot low across goal but Konstantopoulos gathered fairly comfortably with other Rovers players lurking.

 

Pools forced a corner and from the kick, Danny Harrison sliced an attempted clearance just over the bar for another corner.  From the second corner kick, Seremet fumbled the ball but was relieved to see the danger cleared as the visitors still looked the better of the two teams.

 

Two minutes before half-time, Chris Greenacre forced Konstantopoulos into a great save when he headed goalward but the deadlock remained as an awful first half came to end.

 

I was half tempted to buy a newspaper at half-time to keep me entertained but surely it could only get better in the second half couldn’t it?

 

Well apparently not as the dire pattern of the first half continued long into the second 45 minutes.  Aggressive running by Delroy Facey created a chance for Carl Tremarco early in the second half but the goalkeeper saved before Michael Jackson also tested the goalkeeper who was again equal to it.

 

With fifteen minutes remaining, Steve Davies replaced Delroy Facey and Rovers had a little bit of spark upfront as a result.  The substitutes flick presented Greenacre with a chance but he couldn’t get a shot on goal.

 

Despite the introduction of Davies though, it was still fairly obvious that a breakthrough was a long way off and another three hours of football would have been lucky to produce a goal.

 

Both sides had to settle for a point and in Rovers case, yet another 0-0 draw which saw them lose one place in the League table but move closer on points to the relegation zone with them now being just four points from safety.  

 

Next up is another home game against Barnsley on Saturday (February 18th) – Kick-Off 3.00pm and Rovers will have to put this performance behind them and get it out of their system quickly.

 

 

Dino Seremet:  On a day when none of the players performed to a satisfactory level, the goalkeeper did his job well and made a couple of good blocks when needed.  Carl Tremarco started promisingly but as the team performance seemed to worsen, nobody outfield could really say they earned the award.

 

 

Tranmere Rovers:  Seremet, Francis, Jackson, Sharps, Roberts, Aiston, Harrison, O'Leary, Tremarco, Greenacre, Facey (Davies 75).

Substitutes Not Used: Rankine, Jennings, Wilson, Goodison.

Hartlepool United:  Konstantopoulos, Darren Williams, Nelson, Clark, Humphreys, Llewellyn (Maidens 89), Bullock, Turnbull, Robson, Daly, Boyd (Foley 76).

Substitutes Not Used: Tinkler, Clarke, Provett.  

Booked: Sharps (Tranmere), Bullock, Daly and Darren Williams (Hartlepool)

 

Referee: Phil Joslin (Nottinghamshire)

 

 

Brian Little Speaking the Tranmere Rovers Official Website:

 

"It was a hard game. It just didn't quite happen for us. Their keeper pulled off a good save from Chris just before half time but outside of that it looked a nil nil all game. We wanted to win but we never really got too much going.”

     

"It wasn't a great performance and it is disappointing as we need to win a home game or two. The league is getting frighteningly tight. It is a hard slog at the moment. I can't fault the effort, we didn't have enough players who played well tonight. We needed that little something special to happen and it didn't.”

 

"We didn't get behind them as they defended very deep. We had to get the ball into the strikers' feet but we didn't do it very well. We might have expected Sam to have a run or two at Ritchie Humphreys but in fairness to Ritchie he has defended really well.”

 

"Their gameplan worked more than ours. There was a lot of effort, and it deserved to be a draw.  We needed a bit more of a playmaker in the middle. The two young lads did well for us in terms of breaking up play but couldn't really find the pass to open them out.”

     

"We are trying to win games. We have talked about being strong and trying not to lose, but within that we are still trying to win. We just didn't play very well tonight."