Mellon furious with his Tranmere side after Grimsby hammering

Posted Wednesday, November 28, 2018 by PA

Tranmere Rovers boss Micky Mellon admitted to being angry and frustrated with his team after they fell to a heavy 5-2 defeat at Grimsby Town.

The Merseyside club had taken the lead when top scorer James Norwood added to his tally early on, but they found themselves 3-1 down just after the break following goals from Harry Clifton, Wes Thomas and Harry Davis – although Thomas’ had more than a suspicion of handball about it.

Paul Mullin managed to pull one back for the visitors, but Mitch Rose’s penalty and Elliot Embleton’s stoppage-time goal saw Grimsby complete the rout.

Rovers fall out of the top seven after suffering just their fifth defeat of the season, and Mellon was far from happy with his side’s display.

“I’m angry, I’m frustrated, and I’m disappointed for the fans that came such a long way because the support was fantastic from start to finish, and I really mean that,” Mellon said.

“It’s difficult to understand sometimes the decisions that people make, or the aggression that’s needed from people sometimes from set-plays and things like that, and the decisions that people make at crucial times can cost you.

“For the second goal, everyone knows it’s a definite handball, so that can be frustrating. But we just needed to rally a bit.

“We got it back to 3-2, and then we gave away two set-play goals again with scrambles and not winning first headers.

“At the end of the day, that’s what people are put into the team to do, and we just didn’t do enough tonight. We looked very vulnerable at the back all the time.”

For Grimsby boss Michael Jolley though, it was a night to celebrate as he brought up his biggest win since taking over as manager – and the club’s biggest victory since 2016.

“It’s obviously really pleasing,” Jolley said.

“The first thing to say is I’ve got a lot of respect for Micky Mellon and his team.

“They’re having a really strong season, they’re a good team and I think they’d only lost four games before this one.

“But we really believe in ourselves, and we’re improving, we keep saying that. I think we showed we can compete with the better sides at this level, so well done to my players, I’m really pleased with them and I think we deserved the three points.

“Our character keeps getting questioned all the time, but we’ve turned another game around and taken something from it.

“We didn’t start the game particularly well, but I think the conditions played a part in that. Playing into that wind was really tough, but once we got to grips with it, I think we thoroughly deserved the win.”