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Blinded by the WhitesTranmere Rovers visit Swindle Town FC in EFL2 at The Nigel Eady County Ground |
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Where are we and What’s going on
The Rovers 🐶 face the Robins at everyone's least favourite fixture in Sunny Wiltshire. It’s going to be a tough one for the Whites today. Swindle are flying high in 2nd with big name manager Ian Holloway at the helm. Rovers are languishing in 16th. Not where we hoped to be. But with just a 7 point gap to the play-offs,anything is possible if we can a pre-christmas run together.🎄🏃🙏🤞. We haven’t lost on the road since late September so we seem to be travelling better than we play at home. Not that that is very hard. Our last away game was a 4-1 thrashing of Bristol Rovers.
The team is a little (or a lot) depleted and can only manage 5 outfield players on the bench 👀. In addition to the long term injuries, Blacker, Whittaker and Solomon all appear to be out. We still have Joe in goal. Phew!. We're playing 3 across the back with Aaron McGowan, Nathan Smith and Patrick Brough. Omari, Cameron are wing backs. Sam Finley and Richie Smallwood are the holding in midfield with Nohan further forward. Up front are Connor and Joe Ironside.
In the Swindle 11 is Paul Glatzal who had 2 disastrous seasons on loan from Liverpool to Tranmere in the Keith Hill era. He had glass ankles and managed a total of just 12 minutes before being re-injured in his 2nd season. He is signed to Swindle now so may have overcome his issues.
The Robins mascot has done the rounds and come into the away stands for some selfies with the fans which is nice to see. There are plenty of SWA here. Making up a good crowd of 8149. There are a good number of service personnel on the pitch for the last post. It’s followed by a few choruses of 🎵We wanna go home🎵. We love Swindon really. And we’re off. Come on you whites.
Off we go…
The SWA are in good voice for the kick off. The half is scrappy with little by way of chances either way. It gets scappiers as it goes on with Swindon getting a couple of yellows. Though nothing is done about their running off with the ball for Tranmere freekicks so regularly that it looks like they did that in training. Oli Palmer gets his yellow for moaning at the ref which he decides to continue after the whistle. Hopefully more of the same to come as Tranmere were improving towards the end of the half.
It starts well for Swindle. They get chances and corners. In the middle of that is a wild shot from Omari. The Robins come closer forcing Joe into a couple of good saves.
Tranmere’s highlight is moaning at the officials as Cameron is booked for taking too long to take a throw-in. What! A new one for everyone, that. It’s back to normality as Connor gets booked for a foul.
The subs start on the hour mark. Nohan, Connor and Joe Ironside are replaced by Dennis, Josh and Taylan.
It’s Sam’s turn to get booked now. Tranmere hit on the break but Dennis can’t hit the target. The Robins race down the other end. The shot is saved by Joe but the rebound goes to Oli P who scores from close range. Deadlock broken on 74.
One of the Robins promptly sits down to celebrate and maybe waste some time. Ref is not impressed but does nothing, again. At 80 minutes, pantomime villain, Ollie Palmer is subbed off and boo’ed off by the SWA. Rovers get down the other end but Joseph’s shot hits the post. It rebounds to Dennis out wide. He makes no mistake to level the score on 88 ⚽. 1-1.
Into 6 minutes of added time. It’s end to end now. Omari’s shot is blocked. He is then replaced by Jason Lowe. A Robins attack on 93 leads to a great shot from outside the box. It goes through a host of bodies and Joe has no chance. 2-1. It all goes off in the Tranmere dug out. No idea what happened or was said but Andy gets a red card. A second yellow or a straight red, we don’t know. It ends with a horrible atmosphere in the stands on 90+10. A quick round of applause for the boys and we’re out of here. 🎵We wanna go home🎵. We can now.
We think it’s all over….
That wasn’t a bad game at all. Despite the scoreline. The performance was OK for a side in 17th facing a team who are equal top. It was getting a bit heated at the end of the 1st half and we expected that to continue in the 2nd. It didn’t. Whether Ian Holloway’s team talk was with the boys in red or or the ones in black, we aren’t going to speculate. Much.
The changes worked much better for the Robins and they were able to get the upper hand for a while. We did use every available outfield player on the pitch today but couldn’t keep up. Tough to put a team together with so many missing. It’s going to be very tough if we lose any more.
We’re not sure what happened in our dugout but it all kicked off and Andy ended up seeing red 🟥. He does tell it like it is. Something that is not always popular. There were some players involved too so what was done and said we probably won’t ever find out.
As a club we are not in a great place. We move down 1 place to 17th which isn’t much better than last season. Andy still has the backing of most of the fans and his red card won’t harm that.
To cap it all, Paul Glatzal, him with the glass ankles, managed 78 more minutes without injury today than he did in the whole of his 2nd season at Tranmere.
It’s time to leave the worst away end that we have been to for a while (and Gillingham is much better now anyway) and join the traffic chaos around the closure of the M4. The things we do for the love of the Whites.
Some Other Stuff
POTM: Not really many stand out in what was an OK team performance, Cameron Norman 🏅 was his usual consistent self as wing back so get the away today .
The officiating was poor but consistent in the first half. It was so different in the second half. He seemed to take against Tranmere from the off. He stopped ignoring the Swindle theatrics and started throwing yellow cards around. And who knows what he sent Andy off for. Idiot.
The Scran’O’meter doesn’t do prison food so had a packed lunch on the way and a KFC on the way home.
Love Tranmerekat 🐾
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| Sunshine in Swindle |
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| Arrived at the County Ground |
