Tranmere hosted Exeter this afternoon for a 3pm kick-off in their latest game of the 2021/22 League 2 season.
Ahead of the game, reflecting on Friday’s draw at Bradford, Micky Mellon said, “I think to be fair the only positive that we can take out of it and we have to be honest is that we got something out of it. I don’t think we started the game well, I think we looked a wee bit lethargic, a wee bit leggy, not enough invention, not enough imagination and urgency, and we passed the ball poorly.
“At the end of the day, we’ve come to a tough place and got a point out of it but I will say that we came here for more and when they went down to ten men we needed to do more.
“We’ve made the substitutions at halftime to try and get a wee bit more out of it, but we never worked the goalkeeper anywhere near enough, because when we got into good areas we either gave the ball away cheaply or the quality into the box was not good enough or we just never got on the end of enough stuff.
Match Report: Tranmere Rovers v Exeter City
| Tranmere Rovers 2 |  v  | 0 Exeter City |
| Hawkes (39′) Nevitt (81′) | Goals | |
| Hemmings (39′) Merrie (81′) | Assists | |
| HT 1-0 |
Thanks to goals from Josh Hawkes and Elliott Nevitt, Tranmere now find themselves at seventh in the league and in the playoff positions after beating second-placed Exeter 2-0 this afternoon.
Recent poor form had meant that Rovers had dropped from the automatic promotion spots following a run of five games without a win and just two victories in 12 matches.
With eight minutes on the clock, Tom Davies headed Chris Merrie’s corner over the bar and two minutes later, Exeter had a chance when Offrande Zanzala struck the crossbar.
With just five minutes remaining in the first half, Hawkes opened the scoring for Tranmere. A strong and determined Elliott Nevitt played the ball off to McManaman who found Kane Hemmings who cut the ball back perfectly for Hawkes. He easily found the back of the empty net to round off a fantastic team move by Rovers.
Tranmere thrived on taking the lead and grew stronger with each passing minute. Nevitt secured victory with nine minutes to go with a header into the bottom corner of Exeter’s net from Merrie’s curling cross.
Sam Foley should have added to the scoreline when a square cross provided by Daceres-Cogley perfectly found Foley, but the resulting shot went narrowly wide.
Tranmere visit Stevenage for a 3pm kick-off on Saturday 23 April in their next League 2 fixture.
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Tap or click to follow birkenhead.news on Twitter Tranmere Rovers – Formation 4-4-2
13 Joe Murphy GK
2 Josh Dacres-Cogley DF
6 Chris Merrie DF
5 Tom Davies DF
26 Peter Clarke (C) DF
22 Lee O’Connor MF
14 Callum McManaman MF
19 Lewis Warrington MF
15 Josh Hawkes MF
10 Kane Hemmings FW
20 Elliott Nevitt FW
Substitutes
25 Ross Doohan SUB
24 Kyle Hayde SUB
17 Sam Foley SUB
8 Jay Spearing SUB
12 Charlie Jolley SUB
18 Nicky Maynard SUB
21 Joshua McPake SUB
Manager
Micky Mellon
Match Officials
Referee: Chris Pollard
Assistants: Abbas Khan and Oliver Bickle
Fourth official: Billy Smallwood
Exeter City – Formation 3-4-1-2
1 Cameron Dawson GK
39 Cheick Diabate DF
6 Sam Stubbs DF
26 Pierce Sweeney (C) DF
12 Joshua Key MF
3 Jack Sparkes MF
8 Archie Collins MF
21 Callum Rowe MF
14 Timothee Dieng FW
20 Jevani Brown FW
18 Offrande Zanzala FW
Substitutes
40 Scott Brown SUB
2 Jake Caprice SUB
27 Jonathan Grounds SUB
31 Josh Coley SUB
7 Matt Jay SUB
11 Padraig Amond SUB
15 Kieran Phillips SUB
Manager
Matt Taylor
Attendance: 6,666
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