Pete Wild hails ‘top player’ Jayden Joseph as Tranmere win at Cheltenham

Relieved Tranmere boss Pete Wild admitted he had a “top player” in Leicester loanee Jayden Joseph after the midfielder bagged a stunning 25-yard goal to help secure a vital 3-1 victory at Cheltenham.

George Miller gave Cheltenham a 40th-minute lead, pouncing on a loose pass before placing his shot beyond keeper Marko Marosi.

But the game turned in the second half with Nathan Smith smashing in from close range five minutes after the break.

Joseph then handed Tranmere the lead with his first-time volley on 64 minutes before teeing up striker Omari Patrick to complete the scoring five minutes from the end.

“To get a goal like that was fantastic and probably what the night needed,” Wild said of Joseph. “We needed something to go our way.

“JJ looked leggy early on but then seemed to find a second gear to get into the game again. He’s a top player and is going to have some career. I thought he was excellent when he played higher up and allowed us to press their full-backs, forcing them to kick it long, which is what we wanted.

“At half-time I said we just need to go and get after them. We went 4-3-3 to see if it worked for 15 minutes, to see if we could get a foothold back in the game. We did and the players got over their nerves. I thought the intent that the players showed was excellent against a very good Cheltenham side.

“The result puts pressure back on everybody below us. They are probably looking at tonight’s result and wondering where we have pulled that one from. It has been us under pressure for weeks on end. Now it chucks the pressure back on them. It is clearly not done yet so we need to dust them down and try and go again on Saturday.”

Cheltenham boss Steve Cotterill said: “We dominated the first half and we were much the better team, but we needed to score more than one goal and we spoke about that at half-time.

“After their equaliser, they then had something to fight for. There wasn’t any fight in the first half and we were much the better team, playing some great stuff. Then that goal has gone in and we’ve gone into our shell. They’ve got a lift off that and, at half-time, they would never have thought they were getting back into that game. They were struggling to get the ball.

“We’ve absolutely shot ourselves in the foot in that game and that’s what really disappoints me because, second half, it was like we couldn’t get ourselves back in it.

“It looked in the second half like they needed the result more than us. That’s what disappoints me really because why should they need the result more than us?”