Tranmere boost survival fight with win at Accrington

Posted Sunday, March 08, 2020 by PA

Goals from James Vaughan and Mark Ellis gave relegation-threatened Tranmere a 2-1 win over Accrington, who finished with 10 men.

Tranmere remain in the bottom three but have games in hand on the teams above them.

Stanley forced all the early pressure, with Dion Charles firing wide and Scott Davies denying Callum Johnson, but it was Tranmere who opened the scoring with their first attack on eight minutes.

A Kieron Morris free-kick found the head of Vaughan eight yards out and he guided the ball past Joe Bursik – the former Bradford man’s 13th goal of the campaign, and second for Rovers.

Stanley continued to create chances, with Joe Pritchard’s effort not far off the top corner, but did not really test the Tranmere keeper and the visitors struck again on 77 minutes.

Peter Clarke fed the ball across the face of goal after Stanley failed to clear a corner and Ellis had the easy task of tapping into an empty net at the far post.

Stanley set up a grandstand finish when Alex Woodyard headed Bobby Grant’s free-kick into his own net on 82 minutes but, in added time, Stanley defender Harvey Rodgers saw red for a second bookable offence.