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Away Daze - Carling Cup - Tranmere 0 - 1 Bolton

Author: mummywhycantieatcrayons / Date: Thursday 27 August 2009

Once upon a time in the West... Wirral correspondent Mummywhycantieatcrayons reports.

Gary Megson isn't completely useless - he taught me a new phrase on Tuesday. In a preview for the game, he is quoted in the local Wirral press as having told the players that "we are going to have to circle the wagons again". Apparently, this is something a cowboy in the Wild West might do when faced with imminent attack by a horde of Indians - arrange train wagons in a circle formation for protection.

Unfortunately, I do think this is how he sees himself - as some sort of gun-toting crisis-managing outsider, whose job it is to protect this here little town from the savage bad guys who've got us surrounded, the best method for which is erecting makeshift defensive walls with whatever he can find lying around.

Anyway, thanks to Gary for the inspiration for a tenuous theme for this report, when the action provided little.

The Good:

A cup game and, for that matter, Tranmere, taken seriously for a change. There was no reason not to play a strong side at this stage in the season, and these players need to develop a taste for winning competitive games. It was pleasing, then, to get the teamsheet and see that we had named the strongest side available, if you believe that Jlloyd Samuel is a better option than Paul Robinson at left-back.

Mark Davies. He played well, and his was the decisive contribution a few minutes before half-time when he smashed the ball through the Tranmere 'keeper, rather than round him, having been played in with a defence-splittling pass from deep by Kevin Davies, of all people. I like Mark Davies - for me, he's our most positive player, always asking for the ball, willing and able to dribble with it and drive forward if there isn't a pass on immediately. His staying free from the injuries that have dogged his fledgling career so far will be very important to us this season. I noticed some odd reports saying that he was clearly unhappy at being being subbed for Chung-Yong (who showed some nice touches but is surely too lightweight), as he headed straight down the tunnel. The more observant present will have noticed that he had been nobbled a few minutes previously, and he headed down the said tunnel accompanied by a bloke wearing latex gloves.

The defence. Ok, so Tranmere were implausibly toothless, but I was encouraged by my first viewing of the back four this season. The Cahill-Knight relationship was particularly interesting, as they appeared to have an understanding whereby when the opposition only have one player in an advanced position, Knight can charge forward into the Campo zone and use his quite magnificent height to win absolutely everything in the air, leaving Cahill to mop anything up that might pass him by. Nothing did. Ricketts seems a competent enough fullback when faced with this level of opposition, and showed on a few occasions that he has the bit of skill required to beat a man and get a cross in. Samuel's first appearance this season was a solid one.

A win and a clean sheet, without ever really having to get out of second gear...

The Bad:

Why didn't we get out of second gear?! The best passing moves of the first half were certainly Tranmere's, and for the first forty minutes it wasn't at all obvious which was the Premiership side and which was the side who had been soundly thrashed in League One at the weekend. To be fair to Tranmere, they competed well all game, and look a half-decent side apart from the complete lack of any goal threat. Their centre half, Ricardo's international teammate Ian Goodison, must be about as good it gets at this level, and won almost all of his battles with a subdued-looking Davies. I suppose one way Premiership sides put those lower down the food chain to the sword, if you'll excuse the mixed metaphor, is by hitting them with width and pace, which we are simply not equipped to do with our fairly pedestrian forward line, and narrow 4-1-3-2 formation.

Sean Davis. I was pleased when we signed him, but he's not the player I remember being impressed by in the past. We are playing him in the Campo role, for which he does not look to have the speed of though or range of passing, nor the destructive qualities that would compensate for these deficiencies. Very disappointing.

Matt Taylor. He looks a shadow of the player whose goals were so vital to us last season.

Kevin Davies. Ditto.

Elmander. I am actually a bit concerned. Obviously, when he's playing well he's a good player, but he doesn't have the pace or strength to make something happen if things aren't going his way. Alright, so the luck isn't with him - even when he had a header from point-blank range, the young Tranmere 'keeper produced a wonder save, but all the same, this was opposition two divisions down and they still made him look very ordinary indeed. He won nothing in the air, won no foot races, and didn't even seem to have the fleet of foot to make space for the shot when on the ball. There will surely be few better opportunities to get things going in the right direction than this.

The Ugly:

Michael Ricketts' reception from our travelling support on his Tranmere home debut. I'm going to own up though - I don't wish him any ill. I think being the best striker in the world for three months, and then getting an England cap, would probably make me behave like a cock too. When I see him, and that very distinctive 'running' style, I can only remember the good times and wistfully reflect on how long ago all that seems now. How many clubs has it been? Ten? Eleven? There seems to be no reason to believe he could ever be a decent player again, but he actually gave Tranmere another dimension when he came on. He made an instant impact, winning a useful flick-on from the free kick that allowed him to come on, and on a few more occasions he showed some quick feet and good vision when pinging accurate passes around. I, for one, would quite like to see him fit and scoring goals again. John Barnes probably needs him to if his revolution is going achieve anything more than mid-table mediocrity for Tranmere.

So, there you have it. Yet another game that didn't offer much to the neutral, but a performance that would euphemistically be heralded as 'professional', were everything else in the garden rosy. For what it's worth, I think our problems are more to do with a lack of form than a lack of class, but that does little to diminish their seriousness as they appear at the moment.

Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment.