Positivity in abundance at Prenton Park ahead of Crawley clash

Micky Mellon's side secured a place in the promotion play-offs for a third consecutive season after drawing 1-1 draw Bury on Tuesday night, that saw the visitors go up automatically instead.

Rovers face Crawley Town at The People's Pension Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

The result will determine Rovers' place on the table and their opponents in a potential four play-off fixtures.

Looking ahead to Saturday's game during a press conference at the club's Solar Campus training ground this afternoon, Mellon expressed his pride in the club as a whole and said his side were ready for the trip.

He said: "We want to finish well and as high as we can but, at the same time, as a football club we always try to perform and win the next game, so that will never change. That's what should be expected and will be expected of us.

"So it will be a case of us concentrating on doing that.

"The main thing is that the boys get prepared properly and get there and perform.

"Then whatever comes our way we hopefully get, in terms of getting the result and the points.

"So we'll go down there and expect to play well and fight for another three points for the club."

On the squad's possible line-up he continued: "We will have to look at what is the best thing for us in order to be ready for the playoffs.

"So, we will balance all of that out and definitely have some decisions to make.

"We took some knocks anyway, that will put maybe one or two in doubt. But make no mistake, we'll be going down there to perform.

"A lot fans will travel, so they will be represented and need to know that we're going down there with the best intentions."

Praising his team, he said: "If the players haven't got that positivity, I'd be very surprised. They have done fantastic.

"We never really had any targets at the start of the season, other than making sure we give every game our best, taking it game by game.

"To get ourselves in this position is terrific and well deserved after 45 games.

"I was pleased that they were disappointed at the end of Tuesday's game, because that's what the standards are of the football club.

"We wanted to get automatically promoted, we fell short of that, so we'll very quickly move on.

"We now get the fantastic opportunity to fight for the next route out of it now, the play-offs, which is a great credit to the players, staff, fans and all the rest of it who have been involved.

"So, when the time comes around after we play the Crawley game we'll look forward to that, there going to be fantastic games.

"I'm careful to say I'm very proud of the players because, to me, that would sound like I didn't think they were good players and that I was surprised and proud.

"I knew I had good players at the start of the season, because I knew what the mentality would be like because I'd worked with them for two years before.

"I was confident that they would go all-out to have a good pre-season to give themselves the best chance possible of making an impact in a league that, let's be honest, a lot of them hadn't played in or made a great impact in.

"They were determined to make an impact and they did."

The manager's positivity at securing a play-off place was echoed by defender Sid Nelson during the press conference.

On the positivity level he said: "It's 100%. I wasn't here at the start of the season, but a lot of the boys have said that if you gave us this opportunity at the start of the season, they'd have took your hand off.

"Of course it's disappointing that we went in the game the other night aiming to win, because we looked like we were playing to win.

"I'm looking forward to the possibility of playing another four games.

"We all know our roles and responsibilities, so we've just got to go out there and do what you've been told in training and crack on with the game."