Mellon seeking to end Tranmere's poor form with rare victory against Cobblers at Sixfields

Tranmere Rovers manager Micky Mellon is hoping his side can kill two birds with one stone and end a couple of poor records with victory against Northampton at Sixfields this weekend.

The first poor record Rovers must end is their current run of form. They are without a win in eight games across all competitions and have subsequently slipped out of play-off contention, increasing the pressure on Mellon.

However, in order to get back to winning ways, Rovers must do something they have not achieved since 2006 – win away at Northampton.

Mellon said: “It is a place where, for the last few seasons, we haven’t played well. We spoke to the lads, and we’ve said the reasons why we think that we didn’t, we need to try and fix that.

"We haven’t won there for 16 years I think, of course we’ve not played against each other every year, but it’s all there for us, the prize is there for us to go down there and fight for.

"We know what we have to do well in order to get a result, so we’ve been working on that as well. It’s always a really good place to go and play football, we just have to make sure that we do the things that we haven’t done previously to go down there and get a result.

"People will maybe lose patience with it sometimes, doing what I’m asked to do here, which is to keep improving them and to keep moving them forward to the group of players that I know they will definitely become.”

Like tomorrow’s hosts, Tranmere were also without a game last weekend and Mellon believes the break has benefitted his players.

He added: “We’ve got a lot of good work in this week on the grass. Obviously, it’s difficult when you’re playing Saturday, Tuesday so this week we’ve got a lot of good work in. A lot of good individual work in. It will hopefully move the group along; we’ve got a good amount of graft in”.