Tranmere striker Ryan Lowe spoke to his club’s official website ahead of his side’s League One game against Carlisle at Prenton Park tomorrow afternoon, Lowe looking ahead to a six-pointer:
“It is a massive game, you can say it is probably one of the biggest games of the season, but I think there are eight more of them. It is going to be tough and we know that, the next six weeks is going to be massive and it is going to determine our season really and where we are going to be. But, I think if we can put a fight up and play the way we played the other night and hopefully this time get a little bit of luck and take the points then hopefully we should be OK.
“I think if we can get a win on Saturday and then go away to Colchester and pick up something as they are not on the best run of form of late. So, these next eight games are vitally important to our season and our careers really. It is a bit of a kick in the teeth that we are so close to the relegation zone after we played so well on Tuesday, it is more of a downer, if you have played badly and deserved nothing out of the game then it is like that.
“But, you have got to pick yourselves up and go again, so I think it is a little bit of a motivation for the lads as well. They don’t like seeing it like it is, I look at things months ago when we were rock bottom and you think that it can’t happen again and the majority of the lads think the same. So, I think now we know we were are just scraping out of there and someone is looking down on us to say, come on, give us a little bit more and maybe you can push on out of there.
“We have been up and down all season, the games have been win one, lose one, we haven’t had any back to backs, the season hasn’t really been anything but bad for us if you like. It might sound negative but it is just the way it has been. But, I think the next eight games are not games, they are survival battles. You are going to have be right up for it and you are going to have to play a little bit of uglier football. It is just a case of winning games now.”
Rovers could have up to six players missing for tomorrow’s game on the back of a few definite absentees, alongside some 50-50 cases. Two players certainly out are winger Abdulai Bell-Baggie who is absent after sustaining a knee injury in a reserve match a couple of weeks ago and teenage striker Liam Davies who had a knee operation in February.
The other two men watching from the stands being a pair of central midfielders in Joe Thompson, who is undergoing cancer treatment for his nodular sclerosing Hodgkin lymphoma, and skipper James Wallace who suffered a reoccurrence of a recent groin problem in Tuesday’s 2-1 home defeat against Swindon. Meanwhile, veteran left-sided midfielder Jason Koumas is ‘touch and go’ with a persistent toe injury and Fulham-loanee centre-half Stephen Arthurworrey is 50-50 for the game due to a lower back problem.
In better news for Tranmere assistant manager though central midfielder Steve Jennings, who was taken off as a precaution against Swindon with a knee problem, is available for Saturday, while striker Akpo Sodje returns to the squad a recent one-month loan spell at Skrill Conference Premier side Macclesfield Town. Finally Rovers yesterday signed versatile defender Matthew Pennington on a second loan spell from Everton this season, the 19-year old remaining at Prenton Park until the end of the season.
The referee for tomorrow's match is Stuart Attwell from Nuneaton in Warwickshire and he will be assisted down the lines by Daniel Meeson from Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire and James Wilson from Heaton Moor, near Stockport. Meanwhile, the fourth official is James Mainwaring from Bury.