A month of change

They'd started that game in the bottom half of the table and ended with the unenviable and worrying record of just one win in eight league games.

But four weeks and four games later, they are back on track, restored to the top six and looking a completely different team.

There is no question that the recruitment of first Jon Newsome then Paul Warhurst - the most welcome and wanted of loan signings - has gone a long way to giving Colin Todd's team a solid look.

But the seeds of revival were sown in that Tranmere game at the Reebok when the manager made a subtle but significant half-time switch.

Scott Sellars, fit again and back in his stride wide on the left, was asked to 'tuck-in' to make the midfield more compact and, despite Kenny Irons' second disputed penalty and some late pressure after Mark Fish's sending off, the post-match mood was one of disppointment rather than despondency.

"Confidence was a bit low going into that game," Sellars recalls. "We were a bit edgy but Tranmere was the start of us getting back on the right lines, especially the second half when we played much better.

"Playing against a sweeper system, when they have three in the middle against our four spread, our two in the centre can get over-run by their three. So I came into the middle, letting their right-back have the ball, and we just left Michael Johansen to push up on their left back.

"We looked a lot better that way."

Despite being effectively written off as a promotion force, Wanderers felt they had laid the foundation in that Tranmere game. And, with Newsome on board, Todd had the confidence to suggest before going to Ipswich that this was the ideal time for them to bounce back and prove their critics wrong. A solid performance, adopting the modified midfield pattern and capped by Bob Taylor's late winner, justified the manager's optimism.

"We weren't really too bothered about what anybody else was saying," Sellars recalls of what could turn out to be the pivotal point of the season, "we just had to get ourselves going again. Even a draw would have been enough down there but the win was a bonus.

"We haven't looked back."

Sellars has no hesitation in suggesting that Newsome and Warhurst have played a major part in the revival that, with the 1-0 win at Stockport, the 4-0 Reebok rout of Bury, and the solid 1-1 draw at Wolves, has put Wanderers right back in the promotion frame.

"They've made a big difference," he acknowledged. "You didn't have to be a brain surgeon to see what was wrong. We were scoring a lot of goals but we were also conceding a lot and that's not a recipe for being top of the league.

"When you stop leaking goals it gives everybody confidence. Instead of looking over your shoulders, you've got the confidence to express yourselves and get people into the box."

But Sellars, at 33 and a veteran of three successful promotions to the top flight, is too long in the tooth to start counting chickens.

"We'll be much more confident against Tranmere this time but it's only four games that have gone well for us," he says, putting the recent run into perspective. "If we go and lose the next three it's all irrelevant. We've got to keep it going."

To supporters - even the chairman, perhaps - tomorrow is an early opportunity to make up for the disappointments of that November 14 encounter. But to the players, it's just another chance to press on.

"What happened three or four weeks ago is gone," Sellars insists. "All we are looking for tomorrow is a good result. Nothing else matters.

"And to do that, we'll have to be solid, set out to frustrate and stop the opposition getting up a full head of steam, as we have done in the last few games."

The rest, you fancy, will take care of itself.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.