TRANMERE Rovers are gearing up for what promise to be an exciting final eight games of the League Two season.

During a press conference at the club's Solar Campus training ground this afternoon, ahead of Saturday's game against Carlisle United at Prenton Park, manager Micky Mellon said the club owed it to fans to give them something exciting and were working hard to ensure they do.

Rovers made it six league wins on the spin for the first time in nearly 30 years with a 2-0 triumph at Colchester United last weekend.

They are currently five points off the top three automatic promotion places in the division with a game in hand.

Assessing this weekend's opponents at Prenton Park, Mellon said: "They're up and among play-off contenders and have got plenty to fight for.

"So we know it’s going to be a massive battle for valuable points, so there will be no surprises for us.

"It's important that you give the fans something worth supporting as much as you can to come into this part of the season. We’ve got some excitement now, for the fans.

"We will just continue to work hard, take it day by day, enjoying the sunshine and working hard and keeping the intensity of everything up to the levels need to get used to playing at.

"We try and keep it focused on ‘the now’, because that’s all you can control, so we don’t look any further than that.

"It's not fair of me to say that we don’t all dream, because that’s great and is what football is all about. But you have to bring yourself back down to reality.

"So it's important to be as good as you possibly can for the game at the weekend.

"We wouldn't go too far ahead of ourselves; we have work that we have to do from day-to-day. We’ll do all we can to keep improving and moving Tranmere forward."

The manager also congratulated Rovers striker James Norwood, who has been nominated for EFL Sky Bet League Two Player of the season this week.

After 28 goals in all competitions for Rovers this season, James has been picked as one of the best three players across the entire division. He has been nominated alongside Bury duo Danny Mayor and Jay O'Shea. Norwood said yesterday: "I'm delighted to be up for the award. It's a credit to the team and how good we’ve been so far this season.

"They work so hard every week to create chances for me and I’m just grateful that I'm on the end of them."

Paying tribute Micky said: “Thoroughly deserved, am really pleased for him, he’s worked really hard to get in there.

"He's having a terrific season so far. Has been fantastic for Tranmere and is a good guy as well."

On the nomination's kudos for the club, he continued: "It’s our first season back in the Football League, so be to be recognised like this is fantastic that people think we have good players."

Echoing the mood of optimism in club as the final eight games approach, defender Liam Ridehalgh said: "Eight weeks ago, we were outside the play-offs and now we are a few games away from cementing a place in the play-offs and looking beyond that as well so it's an exciting time.

"We are just literally taking it game-by-game, we've got a game in hand because if you look beyond that it can come back to bite you.

"We will be going out on Saturday to try and win again, making it a seventh win in a row, we want to win every game now up until the end of the season, but we will be focusing on the next game.

"When I first joined, suffering two relegations wasn’t ideal but you’ve just got to stick with it, we could get promoted this tear.

"It is great for the club because after two relegations it was in a bit of a mess, so it's great for everyone involved at the club to turn it around and it is exciting to be where we are."

Looking ahead to Saturday's game the Halifax-born player continued: "It is going to be a very tough game, but we have worked on it all week, everyone knows their jobs and we will be going out there to get the three points.

"We have gone back to basics and everyone knowing and building on their jobs and making sure we do that with the right mentality and intensity because maybe some games we dropped off that little bit but we are always reminding ourselves throughout the week that that’s where we need to be at and that's definitely improved the results side of things."