Gary Brabin was once again left ruing Tranmere’s missed opportunities as he reflected on a seventh home league defeat of the season.
Rovers were beaten 1-0 at Prenton Park as they struggled to break down a belligerent Macclesfield side who learned from the mistakes they made in the reverse fixture on Boxing Day.
The hosts had their chances – the best of them falling to Lois Maynard and debutant Jeff Hughes.
But once again, there was that lack of a cutting edge in front of goal, something Brabin knows is costing them dearly.
“We didn’t deserve to get beat,” he said.
“They’ve had two shots on target. One was from 30-yards and the other was the goal.
“I think we’ve dominated possession, created a lot of good chances and scored what looks a perfectly good goal.
The strike the manager was referring to was an injury time shot from Steven Jennings that looked to have leveled the game.
It was ruled out though – and Brabin was given mixed messages by the referee as to why.
“The officials told us at first it was disallowed for interfering with the goalkeeper,” he continued.
“Once they’ve all gone in the room and discussed it, they’ve now told us it was offside.
“We’ve looked at it and don’t see either incident.
“So we’re disappointed with that.
“But we need to take that out of the equation and do things where we’re not relying on other people.
“No disrespect, but you probably wouldn’t have noticed their front three.
“We’ve limited them in our half, played some good stuff and created a lot of chances.
“We feel like we’re saying the same thing, but it just would have been nice to build on the back to back wins.
“But they’re a side who are up there themselves and they’ve been close for the last couple of years.
“They’re in form at the moment and we knew it was going to be a difficult one, but we felt we deserved something from the game.”
Meanwhile Andy Mangan was left out of the Tranmere squad all together following the arrival of Hughes.
But Brabin insists there’s nothing more than injury to his absence.
“He had a little bit of a light strain,” the manager added.
“He hasn’t trained for the last couple of days so as a precaution we just didn’t want to push him.”
Matthew Jones 