Wellens sidesteps play-off talk
Posted Sunday, January 20, 2019 by PA
Richie Wellens insisted that he is not even thinking about the play-offs after his Swindon side secured a hard-fought 2-1 victory over Tranmere at Prenton Park.
Goals from Marc Richards and Michael Doughty gave the Robins a deserved two-goal first-half lead.
Rovers pulled one back through James Norwood just before the hour mark, but despite spells of high pressure the visitors held on and now sit just four points adrift of the play-offs.
Wellens said: “It was a game of two halves I suppose. First half we were very good – a threat – could’ve scored a couple more, but we’ve got two goals.
“You come in at half-time and you know you’re going to get a reaction, it’s a good crowd here, they get really behind the team.
“Their front players are very clever. They lean in and get little fouls. It just seemed like we could never get any momentum.
“It’s a great finish (from Norwood), so I’m not going to be too critical about that.
“In that 20-minute period after they scored it was more about just keeping it at 2-1, managing the game.
“In the end, we saw the game out well. I’m not even looking towards the play-offs. It was a big win today but I’m not getting too far ahead of ourselves.”
Swindon deservedly led 20 minutes in when Ali Koiki crossed and Richards was allowed to dart in to poke home from close range.
Ten minutes before the break, Town doubled their lead when Luke McCullough gifted the ball to Doughty who passed the ball beyond Scott Davies into the net.
The hosts returned more purposefully after the break and Norwood struck in the 59th minute – smashing home Ollie Banks’ cross – but despite pushing hard for an equaliser, they were unable to break Swindon down.
Tranmere boss Micky Mellon said: “I’m disappointed with the first-half performance, I have to be honest. We just didn’t get anything going and to then lose big Ish (Ishmael Miller) was a big blow as well.
“But in terms of the second-half performance it was definitely more like us, but you leave yourself an awful lot to do when you’re 2-0 down at half-time.
“They gave us everything that they had in the second half but we left ourselves with too much to do.
“It was just poor goals (conceded) and probably passed it too poorly when we had opportunities to keep control of the game.
“The movement ahead of the ball wasn’t really aggressive enough in the first half, but the second half we were miles better.
“It’s a disappointing first half. We weren’t quite at it for some reason. I don’t why that was but we just weren’t on the front foot.”
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