After a heavy 5-0 defeat against Sunderland in midweek, Tranmere Rovers now have the prospect of facing another of the promotion contenders when Doncaster Rovers come to Prenton Park this weekend.
It was a tough lesson to take on Tuesday night as Sunderland put the Rovers rearguard to the sword and hand us our heaviest defeat of the season at the Stadium of Light.
From lessons, however, should be things learned, and hopefully the management and playing staff will have done just that to ensure similar won’t happen again.
There isn’t much time to dwell on events of Tuesday night, as Rovers are back in action at the weekend with Darren Moore’s Doncaster Rovers side the next opponents at Prenton Park on Saturday afternoon.
Donny are coming into this game completely opposite to Tranmere. While Micky Mellon’s side were losing heavily at Sunderland, Doncaster took Southend apart and picked up a 7-1 victory away from home.
Admittedly, they took advantage of a couple of Southend red cards in that fixture, but nonetheless, a 7-1 win, whatever the circumstances, will boost morale and confidence in their ranks ahead of their trip to the Wirral.
Looking at their results so far this season, Doncaster have been very inconsistent.
After an unbeaten run of six league matches to kick off the 2019-20 campaign, their next five matches in League One saw them pick up just one victory.
The win at Southend in midweek backed up a 2-0 triumph over Bristol Rovers last weekend and puts them within striking distance of the play-offs, sat in seventh position with a game in hand on most of the teams above them.
So, another difficult game lies in wait. There are no easy matches as we are quickly discovering (bar Bolton).
Tranmere need to find a big response after the disappointment of Tuesday night. Defensively, it was very poor at the Stadium of Light, and against a side who has just scored seven in one game, of course that needs to be far better on Saturday.
Rovers are making too many mistakes in defence and good sides will punish those, as we’re finding out to our cost.
I’m sure there will be a lot of work being done on the training ground ahead of the game to try and put things right from the other night. Let’s hope that it pays off and we can get back to being that solid defensive unit which helped us achieve the success we’ve enjoyed in the past few years.
