TRANMERE Rovers’ boss Micky Adams hopes his side will put in a better performance against Oxford United when they return to the Kassam Stadium for the FA Cup second round this weekend.

Saturday's match comes a week after Rovers recorded their first league win since August as they overcame Portsmouth 3-1 at Prenton Park.

Adams' has painful memories of his last trip to Kassam Stadium on October 19. It was his first game in charge of Rovers, following the sacking of Rob Edwards, and ended with their eighth league defeat, beaten 2-0 by Oxford.

During a press conference at Prenton Park this afternoon, Adams Looked forward to the game, adding that it could have positive effects on Rovers’ league form.

He said: "Any game that you get a win from breeds confidence and we’re no different. There’s an added bounce about the place at this moment in time, confidence is at a high and we’re looking forward to the game.

"In an ideal world would we have wanted a league game following a decent game? Yes, probably. But it’s not to be.

"We've got a cup game, we’ve got to deal with it and want to be in the hat come five o’clock on Saturday.

"That was my first game in charge of Tranmere and I thought it was a disappointing performance.

"It's never easy for players when their manager has just been sacked, but I hope that we’ve improved since that day and that we give a better account of ourselves than we did five weeks ago."

On his team's performance, he said: "I certainly feel that we’ve improved. I feel there’s more about us and we understand our roles and responsibilities and that we can go to Oxford and get a positive result, because that’s what we’re after.

"I think we’ve all got fantastic ideas on how we want the game to be played, but if you haven’t got the personnel to do it then it becomes difficult.”

Michael Appleton was appointed Oxford United’s new manager in July and the squad are currently 19th on the League Two table.

Assessing this weekend's opponents, Adams continued: "Michael Appleton and his staff have become quite frustrated with what they’ve produced. We know that on the day they’re a decent side.

"It's not a game we should be fearful of and that’s my message to my players.

"There's nothing to fear and whilst we respect everything about Oxford, I believe that if we perform anything like we did last weekend, we’ll get a positive result."