Michael Duff impressed by his ‘excellent’ Cheltenham outfit at Tranmere

Michael Duff praised his “excellent” Cheltenham side following their comfortable 3-0 win over Tranmere.

The game was over by half-time as Charlie Baglan headed the Robins in front after just six minutes.

Andy Williams finished off a flowing counter-attack 14 minutes later and things went from bad to worse for Tranmere when Paul Lewis turned a corner into his own net five minutes before the break.

The home side could only muster a handful of half chances in the second period and have now started the season without a goal in two games.

Robins boss Duff said to be three goals ahead at half-time in any league is an impressive feat.

He said: “To go 3-0 up in the first half away from home in any league is excellent. Then we’ve shown the other side of it because they had nothing to lose and went 4-3-3 gung ho and launched it into the box.

“We tweaked what we did because we didn’t have to win the game, we had already won it so we just had to protect it.

“I thought we dealt with what they had towards the end, we could have picked them of a couple of times.

“I was delighted with the clean sheet and for Josh Griffiths. He made a big save early in the second half and if that goes in, it isn’t hairy scary, but it gets their tails up. He came for crosses and looked comfortable.”

Duff added: “There was a 10-minute spell in the first half where they didn’t want to come out because they were happy to let us have the ball and we were happy because we were winning the game.

“That was the lowest key tempo 10 minutes in a League Two game I have seen for a while.”

Tranmere boss Michael Jackson admitted Cheltenham were the better side throughout.

However he said it may have been a different story if the usual rowdy Prenton Park crowd were in the ground.

He said: “We weren’t getting to second balls, we were too late to first balls and we were losing them battles.

“The second half we got going a bit and made a change at the end of the first half with Liam Feeney coming on to change it up.

“We probed in the second half but we cannot start the first half like we did, that was unacceptable and we need to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“They got off lightly not having a crowd in today, but there are no excuses from us.

“They were the better side. We were short to the ball and they were quicker on the press, the lads weren’t good enough and they know that and we need to do better.”