Phil Parkinson hails Wrexham desire after securing first away win of season

Wrexham manager Phil Parkinson hailed the effort of his players as the Red Dragons recorded their first away win since being promoted to League Two last season as well as their first clean sheet of the campaign.

Aaron Hayden’s 56th-minute header meant Parkinson’s side took all three points in a fiercely contested local derby against Tranmere at Prenton Park

The visitors dominated the early stages of a frantic first half with Ollie Palmer, Elliott Lee and James McClean all coming close to opening the scoring.

Meanwhile, Rovers’ best chance fell to Kristian Dennis who almost latched onto a Regan Hendry cross in a rare sortie into the visitor’s box in the opening period.

It was a similar story after the break and Wrexham’s pressure eventually told when Hayden lost his man from a corner to nod the ball home in front of the 2,000 travelling fans.

Despite their dominance, the visitors were unable to add to their lead, despite coming close through Ollie Palmer while Rovers’ only real effort of note was Sam Taylor’s speculative effort which was tipped over by Wrexham goalkeeper Mark Howard.

It’s now five games unbeaten in the league for Wrexham while Ian Dawes’ Tranmere side have lost three on the bounce.

Wrexham manager Phil Parkinson said: “I’m very pleased, I thought it was a strong performance from us, particularly in the first half.

“We were excellent and passed the ball really well, we didn’t get the goal, but we didn’t feel sorry for ourselves and kept going.

“Obviously the home team is going to come back into it to a certain degree and we had enough good chances to win the game by more.

“1-0 wins are important as they show resilience and I thought we dug deep today when we had to and we pushed ourselves that extra yard to get the result.

“Everyone knows we had that spell early on where we were conceding goals and we had to rectify that and the first clean sheet of the season will do the defenders the world of good today.

“The lads have responded brilliantly today and to win a local derby with the support we’ve had here is an incredible feeling.”

Tranmere manager Ian Dawes said: “We knew going into the game it was two teams with two completely different styles of play.

“Wrexham are a very physical side who were going to go long and we knew they’d be relentless, so we knew we had to manage the game.

“We worked the ball well into the final third at times today but we just lacked that little bit of guile.

“We knew we’d have to be patient with the ball because we’d have been crazy to go direct against the three biggest centre backs in the league.

“I thought we defended set plays really well today and there was just one moment where they got a block on us and they scored the goal – that one moment has been the difference today.

“It hurts us today massively and the fans, staff and players will be hurting because it wasn’t just a game of football today, it was about that rivalry and we walk away gutted.”